When Alexander the Great died at Babylon, as Eusebius reports in the Chronicles, different men reigned after him in many divisions of the empire. This is also evident from 1 Maccabees 1. From this arose the kingdom of the Alexandrians, which is Egypt, while different men reigned among the various nations that Alexander had possessed.
Ptolemy, son of Lagus, was the first to begin reigning in Egypt, in the 267th year of the Fifth Age and the 4,777th year of the world. He reigned forty years. Philip, also called Aridaeus, Alexander’s brother, reigned in Macedonia for seven years. Lysimachus held Lydia, Thrace, and the Hellespont.
The Comestor says that when Alexander had returned to Babylon and, after taking poison from his sister, had lost the use of his tongue, he expressed his will in writing. He did not wish to transfer his monarchy to any one man, lest anyone be read by posterity as equal to him in power. Instead, he appointed as successors to the kingdom the twelve men whom he had had as companions from his youth.
This arrangement did not stand, for only four of them reigned after the others had been cast aside, as is contained in Daniel’s fifth vision. The he-goat signifies Alexander striking the ram, that is, Darius. From that goat afterward arose four horns, namely, the four kings who succeeded immediately after Alexander’s death and divided the monarchy among themselves.
Thus Ptolemy, king of Egypt, who was surnamed Soter, after adding Syria to his realm, sought also to add Judea. He therefore went up to Jerusalem on the sabbath, knowing that the Jews would not take up arms on that day under the pretext of sacrificing to God, and entered the city without anyone resisting. Hence, according to Josephus, Ovid mockingly called the Jews “Sabbath-keepers,” because through excessive superstition they had suffered grave harm.
Ptolemy took many captives from Judea and Mount Gerizim and returned to Egypt, where he exposed them for sale. Merchants of the nations bought and dispersed them. Through this captivity, although it was not general, the Jews were dispersed still more widely among the nations. Hence it is read in Acts of the Apostles that Jews assembled in Jerusalem from every nation under heaven. Jadus the high priest was succeeded by his son Simeon the Just.
The philosopher Theophrastus flourished at that time. Cicero says that he received his name from the divine quality of his speech. According to Vincent in book 6, chapter 2 of the Historical Mirror, he was Aristotle’s disciple and successor.
Aulus Gellius says of him in the Attic Nights: When Aristotle was already exhausted by old age, sick in body, and possessing little hope of life, the whole company of his followers came to him and begged him to select the person whom they should follow as successor to his place and teaching. At that time the two foremost men in his school were Theophrastus of Lesbos and Menedemus of Rhodes.
Aristotle ordered Lesbian and Rhodian wine brought to him. He praised both sufficiently, but the Lesbian more. No one therefore doubted that by this remark he had gracefully and modestly selected his successor, not merely the wine. Accordingly, after Aristotle’s death, the whole Academy flocked to Theophrastus.
The following approved sayings are attributed to Theophrastus:
“It is expedient to love friends already proven, not to prove those already loved.”
“You have lost vengeance upon an enemy if he perceives you to be his enemy.”
“You will deceive an adversary more effectively by making him feel secure.”
Another opinion of his was: “The judgments of lovers are blind.”
He also wrote a book on friendship, in which he places friendship before every form of affection, that is, love, but testifies that it is rare in human affairs. A book On Marriage is also said to be his, in which he asks whether a wise man should take a wife. You have material from that book in Part Three, Title One, Chapter One.
§ I. Menander, Philemon, Cassander, and Olympias
In the fifth year of Ptolemy, Eusebius says in the Chronicles, Menander the comic poet first won by producing a play surnamed Art. According to Jerome, the Apostle’s saying to the Corinthians, “Evil communications corrupt good morals,” belongs to this Menander.
Aulus Gellius reports that in contests of comedies this Menander was frequently defeated by Philemon, a writer in no way his equal. When by chance he encountered him, Menander said, “Tell me, Philemon, if you please: when you defeat me, are you not ashamed?”
Valerius says in book 9 that either this Philemon or another man called Polemon was carried off by the force of immoderate laughter. Once an ass ate some figs that had been prepared and placed within sight. Philemon called to a boy to drive it away. When the boy arrived only after all the figs had been eaten, Philemon said, “Since you were so slow, now give the ass unmixed wine.” He immediately followed the wit of his remark with repeatedly gasping peals of laughter, until rough, constricted breath burdened his aged throat.
In Ptolemy’s eighth year, according to Eusebius in the Chronicles, Cassander reigned among the Macedonians after Philip Aridaeus.
Justin relates that Olympias, Alexander’s mother, came from Epirus accompanied by Aeacides, king of the Molossians, but was barred from the borders of Macedonia by Eurydice and Aridaeus. Moved by this, the Macedonians went over to Olympias. By her order Eurydice and the king were killed, after he had possessed the kingdom for six years following Alexander.
According to Orosius, this Eurydice had accomplished many things under her husband’s name through Cassander. She had known him shamefully and had advanced him through every rank of honor to the highest summit. At the woman’s desire, he afflicted many cities of Greece.
But Olympias too, Justin says, did not reign long. By indiscriminately massacring the leading men, in the manner of a woman rather than a king, she turned favor toward herself into hatred. When she heard of Cassander’s approach, she distrusted the Macedonians and entered the city of Pydna with her daughter-in-law Roxane and her grandson Heracles. She was accompanied by Deidamia, daughter of King Aeacides, Thessalonica, Olympias’s stepdaughter and Philip’s daughter, and many other matrons—a company more splendid than useful.
Cassander soon besieged the city of Pydna. When he pressed Olympias with hunger and the sword, she wearied of the long siege, bargained for her safety, and surrendered to the victor. Cassander summoned the people and asked what they wished done with her. Without regard for her former majesty, they immediately decreed that she should be killed.
When Olympias saw resolute armed men coming toward her, she put on royal clothing, leaned upon two maidservants, and voluntarily advanced to meet them. At the sight of her the executioners were stunned by her former majesty and by the names of so many of their kings united in her, and they halted until other men were sent by Cassander. These men stabbed her as she neither fled from the sword and wounds nor cried out in womanly fashion, but submitted to death for the glory of her ancient lineage in the manner of brave men, so that even in his dying mother one could recognize Alexander. Moreover, as she expired, she composed herself so that nothing indecorous might be seen on her body.
Valerius says in book 6 concerning the philosopher Polemon, whom Helinand says succeeded Xenocrates: Polemon was a young man of abandoned luxury at Athens, rejoicing not only in enticements but in infamy itself. When he had risen from a banquet not after sunset but after sunrise and, returning home, saw the open door of the philosopher Xenocrates, he entered the school, which was filled with a crowd of learned men, heavily soaked with wine, perfumed, his head wreathed with garlands, and clothed in a translucent garment. Not content with so disgraceful an entrance, he sat down to make light of the most illustrious eloquence and wisest precepts by the wantonness of his drunkenness. Although, as was fitting, everyone became indignant, Xenocrates maintained the same expression and bearing. Setting aside the matter he had been discussing, he began to speak about modesty and temperance. Compelled by the weight of the discourse to look back upon himself, Polemon first tore the garland from his head and threw it away; shortly afterward he drew his arm back within his cloak. As time passed, he laid aside the convivial cheerfulness of his countenance; finally he cast off all luxury. Thus healed by the medicine of the discourse, from an infamous debauchee he became a very great philosopher. These are his words.
§ II. The Syrian Kingdom and the First Seleucids
In Ptolemy Soter’s twelfth year the kingdom of Syria, Babylon, and the upper regions arose.
Seleucus Nicanor reigned first, for thirty-two years; second, Antiochus, also called Soter, for twenty years; then Antiochus called Theos, for fifteen; afterward Seleucus Gallinicus, for twenty; and after him Seleucus Gerannus, for three. Antiochus the Great then succeeded him and reigned thirty-six years. Seleucus Philopator succeeded him for twenty-two years; after him Antiochus Epiphanes reigned eleven; Antiochus Dupater after him, two years; and then Demetrius, three years. Next Antiochus Sedites reigned nine years, and Demetrius Soter twelve.
Alexander afterward reigned nine years and ten months. When he was killed by Arsaces the Parthian, his brother Demetrius reigned again for four years. Then Antiochus Gryphus, or Cyprus, reigned twelve years. Antiochus Cizethenus expelled Gryphus and held Syria, but Gryphus defeated Cizethenus and recovered it. Thus by turns they reigned and fought against each other for eighteen years. Philip then reigned two years; when Gabinius captured him, the kingdom of Syria came to an end.
Seleucus Nicanor, the first king of Syria, captured Babylon at the beginning of his reign. His strength increased by this victory, he conquered the Bactrians and then crossed into India. After Alexander’s death India had cast the yoke of servitude, as it were, from its neck and killed his governors.
Sandrocottus had been the author of its liberty, but after victory he had turned the title of liberty to his own tyranny. After seizing the kingdom, he oppressed with servitude the very people whom he had freed from foreign dominion. King Vanandro once ordered him killed, but he sought safety in the speed of his feet. Exhausted by flight, he lay overcome by sleep. A lion of immense form approached the sleeper, wiped away the flowing sweat with its tongue, and gently left him when he awakened.
First stirred by this prodigy to hope for a kingdom, Sandrocottus gathered a band of robbers and incited the Indians to a change of rule. Later, when he made war upon Alexander’s governors, a wild elephant of immeasurable size offered itself to him voluntarily and, with the gentleness of a tamed beast, received him upon its back. Thus it served as both commander in war and distinguished fighter. Seleucus made peace with him.
§ III. Simeon the Just and the Lighthouse of Alexandria
At that time Simeon, son of Onias and high priest of the Jews, was regarded as illustrious. His surname was “the Just” because of his devoted worship of God and his ready clemency toward his fellow citizens.
Seleucus transferred many Jews into the cities he had built, granting them civic rights and municipal rank with honor equal to that of the Greeks. Eleazar, Simeon’s brother, assumed the ministry of the temple because Simeon’s son Onias had been left still very young.
Among the Macedonians, Pyrrhus reigned and afterward Lysimachus. Valerius reports that when Theodorus of Cyrene rebuked King Lysimachus and Lysimachus consequently ordered him fastened to a cross, Theodorus said: “The cross is terrible to your courtiers in purple; to me it makes no difference whether I decay upon the ground or on high.”
According to Eusebius, in the fortieth year of this Ptolemy, Sostratus Chidius constructed the lighthouse at Alexandria, which is numbered among the seven wonders of the world. According to Vincent in the Historical Mirror, it was founded twenty paces into the sea upon four crabs of glass.
How were such great glass crabs cast? How were they transported into the sea without being broken? How could foundations of cement adhere upon them, and how could the cement remain beneath the water? How did the crabs not break, and how did the foundation above them not slip? It appears a great marvel and exceedingly difficult to understand.
Isidore says that a lighthouse is a very great tower built in a harbor for the service of giving light.
§ IV. Ptolemy Philadelphus and the Seventy Translators
After the first Ptolemy, son of Lagus, Ptolemy Philadelphus reigned in Egypt. He began to reign in the 307th year of the Fifth Age and, according to some, in the 3,680th year of the world; according to others, such as Bede and the Seventy interpreters, in the 4,000th year.
He ordered that the Jews in Egypt be free. He sent votive vessels to Eleazar, high priest of Jerusalem, and had the divine scriptures translated from the Hebrew language into Greek by seventy interpreters. He kept them in the library of Alexandria, which he had assembled for himself from every kind of literature, as is found in the Chronicles.
The Comestor explains this more fully. He says that this king, being exceedingly studious and desirous of books, placed Demetrius over his library. When he asked Demetrius about the number of books, he answered that twenty thousand were present but that the number could shortly reach fifty thousand.
Demetrius also said that he had been informed that the Jews possessed a law uttered by the Lord’s own mouth and written by his finger. He said that every effort should be made to obtain it, so that once it was translated into Greek its utterance might be kept in the royal archives. For this was the law of God, whom the philosophers call Zena, that is, “the Living One,” since zen signifies life or to live; the common people call him Jove.
To demonstrate the sanctity of that law, he added that it could be translated only by worshipers of the living God. Josephus the historian also says that when a certain Theopompus wished to insert this law of God into the histories he was writing, he was turned to madness for thirty days. Another man named Theodectus became blind for the same reason, but both were healed when they repented. Theopompus also saw in a dream that this had happened to him because he had scrutinized divine matters and brought them before impure people.
Demetrius therefore advised the king to write to the high priest of the Jews, asking him to send Jews skilled in Hebrew and Greek with the law of God, sufficient to translate it. To obtain this, he judged that gifts should be sent with the letters.
Aristeas was present. Having long felt compassion for the Jews’ affliction, he seized the opportunity to free them and said: “How will you obtain what you request while so many Jews serve in your kingdom? Free them, therefore, and nothing could be more pleasing to the high priest of the Jews. Do not suppose from what I say that I am related to the Jews, but understand that it is in your interest to honor God, the maker of all.”
The king freed one hundred and twenty thousand Jews, giving their masters one hundred and twenty thousand silver drachmas [read: one hundred and twenty silver drachmas] for each person. When the king said that this was a great sum, they answered: “It is indeed great, but not for a munificent king.”
The king then wrote to Eleazar the high priest in this manner:
“I have granted liberty to your nation that was among us, judging this to be pleasing to God. Some of them I have assigned to military service; others whose fidelity I have tested I have established in the palace. I have also decreed that your laws should be placed in the library. You will therefore do well by sending us elders who are able carefully to leave us a translation of them.
“I have just sent one hundred talents of silver for sacrifices and have set apart five hundred talents for making bowls and libation vessels, as well as gems without number for the work of craftsmen according to their choice. Command us what you wish to be made from these things, and we shall embrace it the more gladly.”
Eleazar sent him what he requested and wrote back:
“To interpret the law you request, I have sent elders, six from every tribe, carrying the law. It will be the duty of your piety and justice to return it carefully to us.”
According to Vincent in book 6, chapter 16 of the Historical Mirror, following the Comestor, these were the Seventy interpreters. Although there were seventy-two, they are nevertheless called seventy after the manner of Scripture, which often leaves unmentioned a small number exceeding a round total.
When they came to the king, they were received kindly but were not admitted to him until the fifth day. A triumphal solemnity was then imminent on account of a certain triumph that his ancestors had celebrated on that same day. On that day, therefore, he received those whom he had determined to honor before the whole body of the princes.
After their reception they remained with the king for twelve days. He questioned them about matters he had arranged in his heart, especially two: knowledge of God and the government of a kingdom. When they had instructed him concerning royal government, they disputed more fully about the worship of one God and that no creature was God. Hence, whenever in either their discussion or translation they encountered the mystery of the Trinity or of the Incarnation, they either passed over it in silence or translated it enigmatically, lest they appear to have taught that three gods should be worshiped or that a creature was God.
Thus in Isaiah, after the prophet had said that a child would be born and had added his six names—“Wonderful, Counselor,” and the rest—in place of those six names the translators wrote “Angel of Great Counsel.”
They then showed the king the scroll that they had brought with them. He could not sufficiently marvel at the thinness of its sheets and at their joining, which the eyes could not perceive, although golden letters appeared legible upon the whiteness of the pages.
The translators were brought into the king’s private house, which was reserved for deliberating upon affairs. Individual cells and everything that seemed opportune and convenient for translating were given to them. At dawn they went out to wish good things to the king. They then washed themselves in the sea according to the purification of the Jews and afterward translated until the ninth hour. From there they proceeded to take food and rest. They completed the work in seventy-two days.
For this reason it has seemed to some that at that time they translated only the Pentateuch; afterward—either before they returned home or when some of them came back to the king—they translated the Prophets and Psalms. Nevertheless, if the work was done so miraculously that, as Augustine relates, one and the same edition without disagreement was found at the end of that period, it could no less miraculously have happened that within the brief space of seventy-two days they translated both the Law and all the Prophets together with the Psalms.
Jerome, however, does not approve the opinion that without any comparison among themselves all seventy-two produced one edition without any disagreement, because neither Josephus nor the other ancient historians report this. Instead, he asserts that the work was done not miraculously but by human intelligence and diligence: on the sabbath they all compared together what each had translated during the six days of the week; whichever interpretation was judged more suitable was adopted by all, so that all agreed upon one version.
Jerome asserts that this is not marvelous, since Ezra corrected the Law that he had recovered through the Spirit after it had been burned by the Chaldeans by comparing it with the ancient text preserved among the Samaritans.
When the work had been completed, Demetrius, who was placed over the books, summoned all the Jews in Alexandria and the more learned men from the province. The translators’ version was read before them and approved. When the interpreters asked the king to give it authority so that it might remain unchangeable, he promised to do so, provided that they corrected it so carefully that they would not afterward be compelled to nullify what had once been judged.
He sent them back laden with gifts. He also sent presents to Eleazar and dispatched to the temple golden vessels and a golden table distinguished by priceless gems.
Thus this most learned King Ptolemy assembled for himself, as was said, a library from every kind of literature. He placed over it Demetrius Valerius, at that time the most approved of grammarians, to whom among other things he had entrusted the prefecture. This Ptolemy composed canons of the stars and wrote many books. He caused the earth to be described by the philosopher Eratosthenes and sent Dionysius into India to transmit its illustrious matters to memory.
§ V. Sosthenes, Brennus, and the Gauls at Delphi
In the fourth year of Philadelphus, Sosthenes, the tenth king of the Macedonians, reigned for two years.
Meanwhile, Justin says, Brennus, under whose command a portion of the Gauls had poured into Greece, heard of the victory of his people, who under their commander Belgius had defeated the Macedonians. He gathered 150,000 infantrymen and 15,000 horsemen and invaded Macedonia, laying waste fields and villas.
Sosthenes met him with his army in battle formation, but the few were easily defeated by the many, the fearful by the strong. Then Brennus, as though earthly spoils already seemed worthless to him, turned his mind toward the temples of the gods. He jested scurrilously that wealthy gods ought to give generously to human beings.
He immediately went to Delphi, preferring gold to religion and plunder to the offense of the gods. He affirmed that the gods needed no wealth, since they were accustomed to bestow it upon human beings.
The temple of Apollo at Delphi stands upon Mount Parnassus. Cliffs converging from every direction meet there upon a single rock. Thus not walls but precipices, not artificial but natural defenses, protect the temple and city. The center of the rock recedes in the form of a theater. For this reason the shouting of people, or any sound that arises there, is multiplied as the cliffs resound and answer one another; it commonly echoes more loudly than would be believed. The majesty of the place frequently brings greater terror to those ignorant of its nature and wonder to those who are amazed.
Within this winding rock, about halfway up the mountain, is a small plain. In it lies a deep opening in the earth used by the oracle. From it a fervid breath, expelled upward by a certain force as though by wind, turns the minds of seers to frenzy and compels them, when filled by the god, to give responses to inquirers. Many rich gifts of kings and peoples may be seen there.
When the multitude of Gauls first found the countryside filled with wine and other provisions, it rejoiced no less in the abundance than in the victory. It scattered through the fields, abandoned the standards, and wandered about to seize everything. The people of the countryside are said to have been warned by oracles at the first report of their approach not to carry their harvests and wines out of their villas.
Brennus’s army contained seventy thousand selected infantrymen, while the Delphians and their allies had only four thousand soldiers. In the temple were many statues with four-horse chariots cast in solid gold. Greedy for this plunder, the Gauls rushed into battle without regard for danger.
From the summit of the mountain the Delphians overwhelmed the falling Gauls partly with rocks and partly with weapons. During this engagement, the soothsayers of all the temples and the prophet himself, with hair unbound and wearing their insignia and sacred fillets, suddenly ran terrified and frenzied into the front line of the fighters. They cried that the god had arrived and that they had seen him leap into the temple through an opening in its roof. They said that a youth of beauty distinguished beyond human measure and his companions, two armed maidens, had come from the neighboring temples of Diana and Minerva, and that they had heard the twang of a bow and the clamor of arms. They warned the others not to delay in slaughtering the enemy while the gods led the way.
Inflamed by these cries, all rushed eagerly into battle. An earthquake soon broke off part of the mountain and crushed the Gallic army. A storm followed, killing with hail and cold those already suffering from wounds. Brennus himself, unable to endure the pain of his wounds, ended his life with a dagger.
The other of the two commanders who were with him left Greece with ten thousand wounded men. As they fled in terror, they passed no night under shelter and no day without labor and danger. Continual rains, frost, hardened snow, hunger, looseness, and above all the great sleepless evil of the disastrous war wore away its survivors. Not one man from so great an army remained even to preserve the memory of the hidden disaster.
§ VI. Antigonus, the Gauls, and Pyrrhus
After Sosthenes, Antigonus reigned among the Macedonians, thirty-six years after Alexander and for eleven years, as Eusebius writes in the Chronicles.
When Brennus set out for Greece, Justin says, fifteen thousand infantrymen and three thousand horsemen had been left to protect the borders of the nation. After routing the forces of the Getae and Triballi, they threatened Macedonia. They sent envoys to King Antigonus to offer him peace for a price and at the same time to spy upon his camp.
When they were invited to dinner, a great weight of gold and silver was displayed, and elephants were shown to inspire terror. On their return, the envoys exaggerated everything and reported both the king’s wealth and his negligence. The Gauls therefore attacked the royal camp at night.
But the king had given his men a signal the previous day that, after carrying away everything, they should hide in a nearby forest. The Gauls found everything empty and, long afraid to enter, finally took what they found and returned to the shore. While they heedlessly plundered the ships there, the rowers and the part of the army that had taken refuge there with their wives and children slaughtered them.
At that time the eastern kings waged no wars without a mercenary Gallic army and, when expelled, fled to no one but the Gauls. So great was the terror of the Gallic name and the unconquered success of their arms that those kings judged they could neither protect their majesty nor recover it after losing it except by Gallic courage. Thus the survivors were summoned to aid Eumenes, king of Bithynia. After gaining victory with him they divided the kingdom and named that region Gallograecia.
At that time, Alchimus reports, Pyrrhus returned to Epirus, invaded the borders of Macedonia, defeated Antigonus, and received Macedonia into submission. Just as Pyrrhus was regarded as unconquered in subduing kingdoms, so he quickly lost those he had subdued and acquired.
His first war was among the Spartans, where he was opposed with greater courage by the women than by the men. There he lost his son Ptolemy and the strongest part of his army. So great a multitude of women ran together to defend the city that Pyrrhus withdrew no more because he had been bravely defeated than because he had been shamed.
§ VII. Arcesilaus, Crates, Stilbo, and Aratus
At that same time, after the death of the philosopher Polemon, the philosophers Arcesilaus and Crates were regarded as illustrious. Arcesilaus was the man from whom, as Augustine says, the school of the New Academics began. They say that nothing can be known and that all things are uncertain. Seneca says that they take away all hope of knowledge; yet it is better to know superfluous things than nothing.
Augustine briefly refutes their opinion in book 11 of The City of God: “We exist, we know that we exist, and we love both our existence and this knowledge. In these truths we fear none of the arguments of the Academics, who say, ‘What if you are deceived?’ For if I am deceived, I exist. One who does not exist cannot be deceived; therefore I exist if I am deceived.
“Since I exist if I am deceived, how am I deceived in believing that I exist, when it is certain that I exist if I am deceived? Therefore, since I would exist if I were deceived, I am undoubtedly not deceived in knowing that I exist. Consequently I am also not deceived in knowing that I know I exist. Just as I know that I exist, so also I know this very fact: that I know it.
“When I love these two truths, I add to the things I know love itself as a third thing of no lesser value. Nor am I deceived that I love myself, since I am not deceived in those things that I love. Even if those things were false, it would still be true that I loved false things. For how would you rightly rebuke and forbid me from loving false things if it were false that I loved them? But since both those things are true and certain, who doubts that love of them is also true and certain?
“Moreover, no one exists who does not wish to exist, just as no one exists who does not wish to be happy. For how could one be happy if one were nothing?” Thus Augustine.
Seneca says of Arcesilaus in On Benefits: When Arcesilaus judged that he should secretly aid a poor friend who concealed his poverty, was sick, and would not even confess that he lacked money for necessities, he placed a purse beneath his pillow without his knowledge. Thus the man, uselessly modest, would find rather than receive what he desired.
Crates, whom the Chronicles places with Arcesilaus, is said to have been a Theban by nation. It is read of him that he threw a great weight of gold into the sea, saying: “Begone, most evil riches. I drown you lest I be drowned by you.”
Seneca also reports of him in Letter 9: Crates, a pupil of Stilbo, saw a young man walking secretly and asked what he was doing there alone. “I am speaking with myself,” the youth replied. Crates said, “Take care, I beg you, and consider diligently lest you speak with an evil man.”
Stilbo was the teacher whom Epicurus’s letter praises. When his homeland was captured and he lost his wife and children, Stilbo alone came out from the fire. Demetrius asked whether he had lost everything. “I carry all my goods with me,” he answered, for he bore them in his breast, not upon his shoulders.
At that time, according to the Chronicles, Aratus flourished. This Aratus, together with Eudoxus, was an astrologer who, Augustine says in book 16 of The City of God, boasted that he had comprehended and recorded the entire number of the stars. Augustine says that the authority of the Lord’s words to Abraham condemns them: “Look up to heaven and number the stars, if you can.” For how can all be numbered when not all can be seen?
§ VIII. Zeno, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus
In the fourteenth year of Philadelphus, the Stoic Zeno died. After him Cleanthes flourished, according to Eusebius in the Chronicles.
According to Vincent in the Historical Mirror, this saying belonged to Zeno: “It belongs to the wise man to be incapable of disturbance, provided that his reason does not yield to depraved passions.” Seneca says that Zeno also used this syllogism: “No evil is glorious. Death is glorious. Therefore death is not an evil.” Hence, Lactantius says, Zeno inflicted death upon himself with his own hand so that he might live more happily after death.
Augustine says that Zeno and Chrysippus were leaders of the Stoics. Many excellent sayings and many wrong ones are attributed to Chrysippus.
Seneca says of him in Letter 9: “Chrysippus says that the wise man lacks nothing, and nevertheless has need of many things. By contrast, the fool has need of nothing—for he knows how to use nothing—but lacks everything.”
The same Seneca says in book 2 of On Benefits: “I wish to use the analogy of our Chrysippus about a game of ball. There is no doubt that the ball falls through the fault either of the thrower or of the catcher; it keeps its course only when it is suitably thrown and caught.”
A good player must throw the ball differently to a tall fellow player than to a short one. The same principle applies to a benefit: unless it is adapted to both persons, giver and recipient, it will neither leave the former nor reach the latter as it ought.
In the eightieth year of his age, Chrysippus left a begun volume of most exact subtlety. He had expended so much labor upon that work that a long life would be needed to understand thoroughly what he wrote, Valerius says concerning him. According to Solinus, he came from Heliopolis, an ancient town of Sicily. Cleanthes, however, was an Asian.
According to Vincent in book 6, chapter 26 of the Historical Mirror, Asia produced many illustrious persons: among poets, Homer, Anacreon, Minerum, Antimachus, Hipponax, Alcaeus, and the woman Sophon; among historians, Xanthus, Hecataeus, Herodotus, Ephorus, and Theopompus; among the Seven Sages, Bias, Thales, and Pittacus; and among philosophers, Cleanthes the Stoic, Anaxagoras the natural philosopher, Heraclitus the Obscure, and Xenophanes of Colophon.
Lactantius says that Chrysippus himself, believing that souls were eternal, laid hands upon himself as though about to migrate to heaven.
Jerome says against Jovinian that Diodorus the Socratic is read to have had five daughters, dialecticians of distinguished chastity. Philo, the teacher of Carneades, wrote a very full history about them.
Valerius says in book 8 concerning Carneades: “Carneades, a laborious and long-serving soldier of wisdom, made an end of living and philosophizing in his 110th year. When he sat at table absorbed in thought, he forgot to extend his hand toward the food. But Melissa, whom he regarded in place of a wife, moderated between the duties of interrupting his studies and relieving his hunger, and with her own right hand applied what he needed. When he was about to dispute with Chrysippus, he first purged himself with hellebore. Such draughts his diligence made desirable to those who covet solid praise.”
§ IX. Opinions of the Stoic Philosophers
Vincent speaks of the opinions of the Stoic philosophers in book 6, chapter 27 of the Historical Mirror. The opinion of the Stoics, whose leading figures are said to have been Zeno and Chrysippus, was, Jerome says, that every passion can be rooted out and extirpated from human minds. The Old Academics held the same opinion. The Peripatetics, however, say that these passions are to be broken, ruled, and moderated, and restrained with certain bits like unbridled horses. Cicero sets out their opinions in the Tusculan Disputations, as does Origen in the Stromata.
Cicero’s book On Paradoxes is wholly composed of Stoic opinions. Some are true, but most are false. These are the six paradoxes set down there:
- Only what is honorable is good.
- The man who possesses virtue lacks nothing necessary for a blessed life.
- Small and great faults are equal, as though there were no greater and lesser degrees among faults.
- All fools are insane.
- All wise men are free and all fools slaves.
- Only the wise man is rich.
The following statements that Seneca gives in On Benefits also belong to the Stoics: “We deny that the wise man can receive an injury, yet one who strikes him with his fist will be condemned for assault. We deny that anything belongs to a fool, yet one who steals some property from a fool will be condemned for theft. We say that all are insane, yet we treat them all with hellebore. To these very people whom we call insane we entrust both the vote and jurisdiction.”
Seneca says in On Benefits: “The Stoics say that nothing useful can come to evil men—indeed, nothing that does not harm them. Whatever happens to them they turn to their own nature. Therefore they cannot give a benefit, since no one can give what he does not possess.”
Although this is so, an evil person can nevertheless receive certain things resembling benefits, for failure to return which he will be ungrateful. There are goods of the soul, goods of the body, and goods of fortune. The first are removed from the fool and evil man. The Peripatetics, however, who establish the limits of human happiness far and wide, say that small benefits can reach evil people and that one who does not return them is ungrateful. We do not regard as benefits things that will not make the soul better, although we do not deny that they are advantages and ought to be sought.
The same Seneca says in book 7 of On Benefits: “You Stoics say that all things belong to the wise man. How, then, can anyone give something to the wise man if all things are his? Yet nothing prevents a thing from belonging both to the wise man and to the person who possesses it. In the civil order all things belong to the king, yet those things whose universal possession pertains to the king are apportioned among individual owners. We can therefore give the king a gift, money, and a slave, yet we do not say that we give him something from his own. For authority over all belongs to the king, but properties belong to individuals.”
The same author says in the same book: “We Stoics command certain things beyond measure so that they may return to their proper truth. When we say, ‘The man who gives a benefit ought not to remember it,’ we wish this to be understood: he ought not proclaim or boast of it or be burdensome.
“Whenever you have too little confidence concerning things that you command, more than enough must be demanded so that enough may be performed. Every hyperbole is extended in this fashion, so that by falsehood it may arrive at truth. Hyperbole never hopes for as much as it dares, but urges incredible things so that it may reach things credible but great.” Thus Seneca.
It should nevertheless be noted that the Apostle says: “The Lord does not need our lie.” Augustine says first in Cause 22, Question 3: “No one should be led to eternal salvation with a lie as helper.”
Seneca also says: “If you promised to give someone a benefit and afterward learned that he was evil, will you give it or not? If you do, you know that you sin, for you give to one to whom you should not, namely, an evil man. If you refuse, you also sin in this way, for you promised.”
Here our conscience wavers, as it does at the Stoic promise that a wise man never regrets his decisions, never corrects what he has done, and never changes his plan. A wise man does not change his plan while all the circumstances that existed when he adopted it remain. Yet everything is undertaken with an exception: provided that nothing occurs to prevent it. This confidence—promising fortune to oneself—belongs to the imprudent; the wise man considers each of its two sides.
“I shall then break faith and hear the charge of inconstancy if, while all things remain the same as when I made the promise, I do not perform what was promised. For all things must be as they were when I promised before I am bound to perform it.”
Augustine also says in book 14 of The City of God: “The Stoics wished there to be three states in the wise man’s soul corresponding to three disturbances. What the Greeks call eupatheiai, Cicero calls constantiae in Latin: in place of desire, pleasure; in place of delight, joy; in place of fear, caution. But corresponding to sickness or pain—which, to avoid ambiguity, we have preferred to call sadness—they denied that anything could exist in the wise man’s soul.
“For will seeks the good, which the wise man does. Joy concerns a good obtained, which the wise man certainly obtains. Caution avoids evil, which the wise man ought to avoid. But sadness concerns an evil that has already occurred; since they think that no evil can happen to the wise man, they said that nothing corresponding to sadness could exist in his soul.
“Among us, however, the question is not so much whether a pious soul becomes angry as why it becomes angry; not whether it is sad, but why it is sad; not whether it fears, but why it fears.” Thus Augustine.
Vincent says in book 6, chapter 33 of the Historical Mirror that the following is also believed to be a Stoic opinion: “Whoever has one virtue has them all, and whoever lacks one has none.” They say similarly of vices that whoever has one has all. This is not true of vices, however, since vices sometimes oppose one another and contraries mutually expel each other. They cannot exist together at the same time in the same person, as avarice and prodigality, and similar vices.
§ X. Erasistratus and Antiochus Theos
In the fifteenth year of Philadelphus, the physician Erasistratus flourished. It is read that he recognized a lover by his pulse. Valerius reports that when Antiochus, son of Seleucus, had been seized by boundless love for his stepmother, he was cured by the physician Erasistratus. The physician perceived that his pulse became sometimes stronger and sometimes weaker according to the approach and withdrawal of his stepmother and disclosed the matter to his father. The father did not hesitate to yield his dearest wife to his son. Thus Valerius. But each man acted most wickedly.
In Philadelphus’s twenty-ninth year, Antiochus, who was called Theos, reigned in Syria. He reigned fifteen years. Jerome says upon Daniel that he waged very many wars against Philadelphus and fought him with all the strength of Babylon and the East.
After many years Ptolemy Philadelphus wished to end the troublesome contest and gave his daughter Berenice to Antiochus as wife. Antiochus had two sons by his former wife Laodice: Seleucus, surnamed Callinicus, and another Antiochus. Philadelphus brought Berenice to Pelusium and received countless thousands of gold and silver in the name of a dowry.
Antiochus said that Berenice was his partner in the kingdom and that Laodice held the place of a concubine. After a long time, overcome by love for Laodice, he restored her with her children as queen. Fearing her husband’s unstable mind and that he might restore Berenice, Laodice had her husband killed with poison by her servants. She handed Berenice and the son born to her by Antiochus over to Icadion and Gener, leaders of Antioch, to be killed. She established her elder son Seleucus Gallinicus as king in his father’s place.
Valerius Maximus relates that the death of this Antiochus was concealed in the following manner. A certain Artemo, one of King Antiochus’s equals and himself of royal stock, was exceedingly like him. After killing her husband, Laodice forcibly placed Artemo in the bed as though he were the sick king, in order to conceal her crime. He deceived all the people admitted to him by speech and countenance like the king’s. They believed that the dying Antiochus was commending Laodice and his children to them.
Jerome says upon Daniel that this Philadelphus, king of Egypt, was regarded among the Greeks as an orator and philosopher. He is reported to have possessed so great a power that he surpassed his father Ptolemy.
The histories relate that he had two hundred thousand infantrymen, twenty thousand horsemen, two thousand chariots, and four hundred elephants, which he was the first to bring from Ethiopia. He had one thousand five hundred long ships, now called Liburnians, and another thousand for carrying the soldiers’ provisions. He also possessed a great weight of gold and silver, so that from Egypt each year he received fourteen thousand and eighty talents of silver and five times a thousand times one hundred thousand artabas of grain, an artaba being a measure containing three modii and one third of a modius.
§ XI. Ptolemy Euergetes and His Successors
After Philadelphus, his brother Ptolemy Euergetes reigned, as the Comestor reports in the Scholastic History. The Egyptians called him Euergetes, which signifies “Bringer Back,” because after laying waste Syria, Cilicia, and part of Asia, among the innumerable spoils he took he brought back the gods that Cambyses had carried away to Persia.
At that time the high priest of the Jews was Onias, son of Simeon the Just. His son Simeon succeeded him. Under this Simeon, Jesus son of Sirach wrote the book of wisdom called Ecclesiasticus, which the Hebrews call Panarethon: from pan, meaning “all,” and arethon, meaning “virtue,” as though it were entirely about the virtues. Hence Jesus makes mention of Simeon in it. The Hebrews nevertheless place it among the apocrypha.
When Onias refused tribute to Euergetes out of zeal for the law—or rather out of avarice, as Josephus says—he provoked the king to anger. Even against Onias’s will, the Jews sent to the king as their envoy Joseph, a noble man and son of Tobias and of Onias’s sister. He not only restored peace but was sent back by the king as ruler of the Jews and neighboring regions.
At that time Empnius, a philosopher of Tarentum, was brought to Rome by Cato the quaestor. He was content with meager expenditure and the service of one maidservant.
After Euergetes his son Ptolemy Philopator reigned, and after him Ptolemy Epiphanes. This Epiphanes died in the twenty-fourth year of his reign, killed with poison by his commanders, as Jerome says upon Daniel. When someone asked how he would obtain money while undertaking such great things, he answered that his friends were his riches. When this was spread among the peoples, the commanders feared that he would take away the property of the impious and killed him by wicked arts.
After him Ptolemy Philometor reigned. Antiochus the Great, king of Syria, defeated him and subjected Judea to himself.
Arvis, king of the Lacedaemonians, sent envoys to Onias the Great, high priest of the Jews to renew the alliance that he had read existed between Abraham and his ancestors. Antiochus revoked from the Jews the tribute remission for the seventh year and for the ministers of the temple that Philadelphus had granted.
When Antiochus harassed the neighboring regions beyond measure, the matter was reported to the Romans. Scipio Africanus and Scipio Nasica were sent to him so that under the solemn obligation of an oath they might remove him from the aforesaid harassment. In addition, they took his son Seleucus as hostage. Wishing to receive Seleucus back from them, he delivered to them his younger son Antiochus—that is, Epiphanes—on the condition that he should be a perpetual hostage, never to return.
Because of the cruelty of this same Antiochus, Onias went down to Egypt to Ptolemy Epiphanes. Antiochus the Great himself was killed in Persia at the temple of Nanea: the priests tore him limb from limb and cast him out. They had deceitfully promised him treasures, led him with a few men into the hidden places, and killed him.
§ XII. Seleucus and Antiochus Epiphanes
After Antiochus the Great, his elder son Seleucus, a very wicked but inactive man, reigned in Syria. Onias was high priest of the Jews; for when Onias passed into Egypt, as has been said, his son Simeon sat in his place, and Simeon was succeeded by his son Onias.
Under this Onias, Seleucus sent Heliodorus to Jerusalem to despoil the entire treasury of the temple. When he entered, a certain most terrible armed horseman appeared. His horse struck Heliodorus with its forefeet and cast him to the ground. Then two other attendants beat him most fiercely. Josephus says that they were angels. Some say that he was left dead, others half alive. But through Onias’s prayer for him, he was restored to life or fully healed. He returned to the king and proclaimed the power of God that he had experienced in himself. This is contained in 2 Maccabees.
At that time Aristobulus, a Jew by nation and a Peripatetic philosopher, wrote commentaries explaining Moses for Ptolemy Philometor.
When Antiochus Epiphanes, who was a hostage at Rome in his father’s place, heard that his father had died and knew his brother’s inactivity, he presumed that he could possess the kingdom of Syria and secretly departed from Rome. Some nevertheless relate that he returned with the connivance of the senators. Having returned to Syria, he showed himself kindly and munificent in all things. He was energetic in action and fierce against enemies; hence he was surnamed Epiphanes by the people, a name that means “Illustrious.”
After two years, as Justin says, he again assembled an army against Ptolemy. Antiochus made war upon the elder Ptolemy, his wife’s son and king of Egypt, who was exceedingly sluggish and so enervated by daily luxury that he not only neglected the duties of royal majesty but through excessive fattening even lacked the sense of a human being. Driven from his kingdom, Ptolemy fled to Alexandria to his younger brother Ptolemy. After sharing the kingdom with him, they sent envoys to the Senate at Rome.
When the two Ptolemy brothers were therefore besieged at Alexandria by their uncle, Roman envoys came. One of them, Marcus Popilius, ordered Antiochus to depart from Egypt. When the king offered him a kiss—for among others he had cultivated Popilius while he was a hostage at Rome—Popilius told him to put aside private friendship for the present, since the commands of his country intervened.
He produced and delivered the Senate’s decree. When he saw Antiochus hesitate and confer with his friends for counsel, Popilius, as Jerome also says upon Daniel, made a circle in the sand with the staff that he held in his hand. For he had found the king standing on the shore. Drawing a circle around him, he is said to have declared: “The Senate and Roman people command that you answer in this place what counsel you intend to follow.” Terrified by these words, Antiochus said, “If this pleases the Senate and Roman people, I must withdraw,” believing that not an envoy but the Senate itself had spoken before his eyes.
Two years after Antiochus had plundered the temple, he sent men to Jerusalem to exact tribute from the Jews, to change the worship of God, and to place an image of Olympian Jove and statues of Antiochus in the temple. At that time, according to Eusebius, Perses reigned among the Macedonians.
§ XIII. The Persecution under Antiochus
Under this Antiochus, who was called Epiphanes, that is, Illustrious, began the deeds narrated in the books of Maccabees. Although the Hebrews number these books among the apocrypha, the Church has nevertheless received them as representing useful doctrine, the spiritual battles of demons against the people of God, and the divisions and schisms that have arisen in the Church.
In the first chapter of the first book it is said that from those who reigned after Alexander the Great came forth a root of sin, Antiochus the Illustrious. He had been a hostage at Rome and was the son of King Antiochus the Great. He reigned in Syria after the death of his brother Seleucus, who had sent Heliodorus to despoil the temple; but Heliodorus, scourged by angels, departed empty-handed in the 137th year of the kingdom of the Greeks.
In those days wicked sons went out from Israel and persuaded many, saying, “Let us go and make a covenant with the nations.” They did so, sending to Antiochus himself and asking his permission. For this purpose they offered a great sum of money so that they might establish a gymnasium in Jerusalem, that is, schools for teaching the rites of the gentiles, and an ephebia, that is, a brothel for males. They obtained and did all these things, abandoning circumcision and the other ceremonies of the Law.
Two priests, Jason and Menelaus, contended for the high priesthood. To please the king, they changed their proper names: Jason had been called Jesus, and Menelaus had been called John, but they took gentile names for themselves. Yet all things had been according to the order of the Law. The true high priest was a good man and Jason’s brother, but Antiochus removed him and made Jason high priest in return for a great sum of money.
As Augustine says, the fire of the temple altar that had lived under the waters during the Babylonian captivity was then extinguished, as is said in Cause 1, Question 1, As a Eunuch, because of the priesthood purchased in the abomination of simony.
The king took dominion over the Jews, made a great slaughter in Judea, and plundered the temple, as was said above. He commanded all the Jews, under penalty of death, to assume the rites of the gentiles, placing an image of Jove in the temple so that sacrifice might be offered to it. He caused the books of God’s Law to be burned and those in whose possession they were found to be killed, and likewise those who observed the legal ceremonies. For this reason many were killed because they observed the Law.
These matters are contained in the second book of Maccabees, in which certain things omitted from the first book are supplied, although they happened at that time. In the first and second chapters of this second book is placed a letter sent by those in Jerusalem to the Jews dispersed in Egypt. They recount the great tribulations they had previously suffered but from which God had delivered them, and they exhort the others to give thanks with them and celebrate the feast of the temple’s purification. In the third chapter mention is made of Heliodorus, who was sent to despoil the temple but was scourged by angels during the plundering, as was said above.
It is then narrated that, after the death of Seleucus, his brother Antiochus Epiphanes, who had been a hostage at Rome but had returned from Rome to Syria after the death of his father Antiochus the Great, assumed the kingdom. Jason, brother of Onias the high priest, approached him and obtained the high priesthood by promising the king 360 talents of silver. He also promised another 150 talents for permission to construct a gymnasium and an ephebia in Jerusalem.
This most wicked Jason sent three hundred drachmas from Jerusalem to the king for sacrifices to Hercules, for the construction of triremes. Jason also sent Menelaus, brother of a certain Simon who had instigated Seleucus to send Heliodorus to plunder the temple as related above, to the king with much money. With it Menelaus diverted the high priesthood to himself, adding three hundred talents of silver to what Jason had offered in order to obtain it; and he obtained it from the king.
When Menelaus did not pay the money promised for obtaining the high priesthood, he was removed by the king, and his brother, called Lysimachus, was appointed in his place. When King Antiochus departed from Antioch and left there in his place one of his companions named Andronicus, Menelaus stole some vessels of the temple and gave them to Andronicus to gain his goodwill. Reproved for this by Onias, a holy man and priest, Menelaus became indignant and asked Andronicus to kill Onias, which he did.
When the king returned and heard of the unjust death of so great a man, he grieved and wept. The king caused Andronicus himself to be stripped of his purple and killed in the place where he had killed Onias. But after Lysimachus had committed many sacrileges in the temple at Menelaus’s counsel and carried away gold from it, the report spread abroad and a multitude of the people rose against Lysimachus. In the resulting sedition between Lysimachus, accompanied by three thousand armed men, and the people, many were killed on either side. At last the sacrilegious Lysimachus himself was killed beside the treasury. Menelaus, however, because of the avarice of powerful men and his supporters, remained in power and increased in malice.
At that time Antiochus prepared a second expedition into Egypt in order to subdue it. For forty days horsemen were seen running through the air over the whole city of Jerusalem, wearing golden robes and carrying spears like armed cohorts. There were charges of horses, hurling of weapons, a multitude of helmeted men with drawn swords, and armor of every kind. All therefore prayed that the portents might be turned to good.
Meanwhile a false rumor arose concerning Antiochus’s death. Jason joined a thousand men to himself, attacked the city, and caused Menelaus to flee into the citadel. Although a great slaughter was made, Jason did not obtain the principality he sought. Instead he became a fugitive, first fleeing into the land of the Ammonites and afterward into Egypt, going from city to city. Hateful to everyone as a deserter from the laws and accursed as an enemy of his country and fellow citizens, he died among the Lacedaemonians, unlamented and unburied.
After these things had happened, King Antiochus suspected that the Jews would desert the alliance. Departing from Egypt, he came to Jerusalem and commanded his men to spare no one, but to kill those whom they encountered and enter the houses for the same purpose. Hence it came about that in three days eighty thousand were killed, four hundred thousand were bound, and no fewer were sold.
With Menelaus as his guide—Menelaus who was a traitor to the laws and his country—Antiochus dared to enter the temple, handle and carry away the holy vessels with criminal hands, and remove eighteen hundred talents of silver from the temple. He then returned to Antioch. He left in Jerusalem Philip, a Phrygian by birth and more cruel than himself, to afflict the people, and Menelaus on Mount Gerizim.
He sent the hateful prince Apollonius with an army of twenty-two thousand. Arriving in Jerusalem and pretending peace, Apollonius ordered his men to take up arms on the sabbath, when the Jews were at rest, and slaughter everyone they encountered. Judas Maccabeus, however, had withdrawn into the wilderness with many others, where they ate hay for food, as will be said below.
Not long afterward the king sent a certain old man of Antioch to compel the Jews to transfer themselves from God’s laws to the rites of the gentiles and to place an idol of Jove in the temple. Thus the temple was filled with luxury and banqueting. Under penalty of death they were compelled to offer sacrifices to idols, and at the suggestion of the Ptolemies the same edict applied in the neighboring cities.
Two women were accused of having circumcised their sons. With the infants hung at their breasts, they were led around the city and cast down from the walls. Eleazar, one of the chief scribes and an old man, was compelled to eat swine’s flesh, which is contrary to the Law. When he refused, his friends urged him at least to pretend that he had done so in order to escape death. He refused to use such a fiction, lest others, following his example and hearing that he had done it, should be induced to eat such meats. He was therefore scourged to death, leaving an example of constancy.
Amid these events is placed the celebrated martyrdom at Antioch of a certain matron with her seven sons. With them she endured various torments of death inflicted by Antiochus rather than violate God’s Law by eating pork contrary to that Law, which the king compelled them to do. Their mother watched and encouraged them to endure; as each was tortured, he uttered words attesting faith in the resurrection of bodies and rebuking the king. Hence, among all the saints of the Old Testament, the Latin Church celebrates a feast only for these, on the first day of August, because of the marvelous constancy they showed in observing the Law.
§ XIV. Mattathias and Judas Maccabeus
Returning to the things contained in the first book of Maccabees: when Antiochus first sent out an edict that the Jews should pass over to the rites of the gentiles, a certain Mattathias, from the priestly stock of the division of Joachim, had five sons energetic in arms: John, Simon, Judas Maccabeus, Eleazar, and Jonathan. Grieving vehemently from zeal for the Law over such a command of the king, he withdrew with his sons from Jerusalem, together with all who possessed zeal for the Law, and settled upon Mount Modin.
The king’s messengers came to the city of Modin to induce people to obey the king in observing gentile rites and idolatry. They urged Mattathias, as the worthiest man, to act first so that he might gain the king’s friendship and receive gifts and honors from him. He expressly contradicted them. In zeal for God he also killed a certain Jew who practiced idolatry in his sight, together with the king’s messenger who commanded it.
Abandoning the city and all their goods, he fled with his sons and many others zealous for observance of the Law into deserted places, and many joined them. When those who supported the king in Jerusalem heard this, they went against them and made war on the sabbath. About a thousand of them, refusing to resist out of reverence for the sabbath, were slaughtered and died in their simplicity.
Mattathias and his companions, guided by better and more prudent counsel, decreed that if their enemies made war on the sabbaths they would resist and fight bravely against them, which they did. A company of men strong in might, everyone who freely willed to follow the Law, assembled to them and became a reinforcement for them. Mattathias and his men passed through the cities of Judea, destroying altars and performing circumcisions. He was their leader, and the work prospered in their hands.
At last, when brought to his final hour, Mattathias strengthened his sons in zeal and observance of the Law. He instructed them with many examples of Abraham, Joseph, Elijah, and others who had endured many adversities so that they might remain in virtue. He died and was mourned by all.
His son Judas Maccabeus then arose as leader of the army in his place, as Mattathias himself had appointed, and his brothers aided him. He became like a lion in his deeds, passed through the cities of Judah, destroyed the impious among them, and became renowned to the ends of the earth.
A certain prince named Apollonius arose with many men against him, but Judas defeated and killed him. Judas took away the sword of Apollonius and always fought with it. Then another man called Seron, leader of the Syrian army, gathered a very great multitude and prepared for battle against Judas. Judas strengthened and encouraged his own men, who were comparatively few, wearied by fasting, and therefore afraid. Advancing against Seron, he defeated and routed him, killing eight hundred from his army.
When Antiochus heard these things, he became very angry and resolved to exterminate Judea and its inhabitants. He gave his soldiers a year’s pay. Fearing, however, that funds would fail him thereafter, he himself went into Persia and Ptolemais to obtain money. He gave half his army to Lysias, a man of royal stock, with whom he also left his son named Antiochus.
Lysias selected as leaders of the army Ptolemy, Nicanor, and Gorgias, powerful friends of the king, and sent them with forty thousand men and seven thousand horsemen to destroy Judea. Many merchants assembled to buy the Jews, all of whom they expected would be conquered and made slaves. When Judas Maccabeus and his men perceived this, they humbled themselves with fasting and prayer, in ashes and sackcloth, asking help from God.
One of Lysias’s commanders, namely Gorgias, moved to battle with five thousand men and one thousand horsemen against Judas and his followers, who numbered three thousand and were unarmed. When they met in battle, Judas exhorted his men to pray to God, routed Gorgias, and killed three thousand from his army. They took much spoil and gave thanks to God.
In the following year Lysias again assembled an army of sixty thousand chosen men and five thousand horsemen and came to battle against Judas. After first praying to God, Judas, with only ten thousand men, obtained victory and killed five thousand from Lysias’s army. When this was accomplished, Lysias saw the boldness of the Jews and returned to Antioch to rebuild his army.
Moreover, Nicanor, Bathis, and Timothy, leaders of the army, came against Judas, who had only seven thousand in his company, while the enemies were three times more numerous. Judas exhorted his men to confidence in divine aid. After prayer had been made, Judas and his followers fought and defeated them, killing twenty thousand of the enemies, while Nicanor escaped by flight, as is contained in 2 Maccabees 8.
Meanwhile the people of Joppa, after receiving as friends the Jews who lived among them, deceitfully drowned two hundred of them in small boats. Judas came by night to avenge this deed, burned the harbor of Joppa and the boats, and killed the men. He acted similarly toward the Jamnites, who were also plotting such things against the Jews.
When Judas fought against Gorgias and his men, some of the Jews were killed. After victory in the battle, when Judas took care that the bodies of the slain should be buried, offerings to idols that they had taken in the battle against the Jamnites—things forbidden to them—were found beneath their tunics. For this reason Judas made a collection and sent ten thousand drachmas of silver to Jerusalem, to be offered there for the sins of those dead men.
Afterward Judas Maccabeus and his followers went to Jerusalem and cleansed from its impurities the temple profaned by Antiochus. They restored it to its former condition according to the Law and celebrated the solemn feast of dedication, decreeing that it should also be observed annually in the future.
When the nations surrounding Judea learned that the sanctuary had been restored as before, they assembled against the Jews to destroy them. Judas met them in battle and struck the Idumeans with a great blow; he then crushed the Ammonites together with their leader Timothy.
When very many nations made war against the Gileadites, while other nations attacked the inhabitants of Galilee, those who were afflicted by the enemies requested Judas’s aid by letters. Judas sent his brother Simon with three thousand men to free their brethren who were in Galilee, while Judas himself, with his brother Jonathan and eight thousand men, went into Gilead to aid those who were there. Simon freed Galilee, killing three thousand enemies. Judas likewise obtained victory with Jonathan, killing eight thousand enemies and putting the rebellious cities to the sword, all their men and women.
After this, Timothy joined a multitude of nations to himself and added Arabs as auxiliaries. Judas and his men crushed them as they fled to Phanu and burned that place with them. He also captured the city of Ephron, which lay on his route and had refused him harmless passage, destroyed it, and killed all its people. They returned to Jerusalem blessing God.
Joseph and Azariah had been left as leaders of the people who remained at Jerusalem and had been warned not to make war against anyone. But they did not obey. Hearing of the victories of Judas and Simon and wishing to make a name for themselves before their return, they made war upon the neighboring nations. Gorgias routed and defeated them, killing two thousand of their men.
§ XV. The Death of Antiochus Epiphanes and the Reign of Eupator
Meanwhile King Antiochus traveled through the upper regions. When he heard that the city of Elymais in Persia was exceedingly rich, he sought to capture it and expose it to plunder, but he was put to flight. Greatly saddened, he returned to Babylon. There he heard of Judas’s victories over Lysias and his men, and he became exceedingly angry, as is contained in 2 Maccabees 9, where the miserable death of Antiochus is more fully narrated.
While upon the road Antiochus ordered his chariot to be driven so that he might reach Jerusalem more quickly, promising that he would make it a heap for the burial of the Jews. But God suddenly struck him with an invisible plague of pain in his bowels. When, uplifted by pride and breathing fire in his mind against the Jews, he ordered the undertaking to be hastened, it happened that he fell from the chariot and was tormented by the severe bruising of his body. He became so infirm that worms swarmed from his body and so great a stench burdened his army that no one could endure it.
When his pains began to increase and he could not bear his own stench, he said: “It is just to be subject to God and for a mortal not to consider himself equal to God.” The wicked man prayed to God but did not obtain mercy from him, because he did not truly repent. He promised to make Jerusalem free, establish the Jews as equals of the Athenians, and give many gifts to God’s temple.
Moreover, he wrote the Jews a letter professing great kindness toward them. Although weakened, he still hoped for health and meanwhile exhorted them to preserve their fidelity toward himself and his son Antiochus. Thus he ended his life miserably.
Timothy, who had been defeated on another occasion, again gathered a very great army and came against Judas, who had few men with him. But after the Jews first offered prayer and humility, five men appeared from heaven to the adversaries during the battle itself, splendid upon horses with golden bridles and providing leadership to the Jews. Two of them enclosed Maccabeus with their weapons and preserved him unharmed, while they cast weapons and thunderbolts against the adversaries. Confused with blindness, they fell, and twenty thousand of them were killed. When Timothy fled into Gazara, Maccabeus pursued him, captured the city, and killed Timothy and his brother.
When Antiochus was dying, he had entrusted the care of the kingdom to a certain intimate companion named Philip, who was with him. He appointed Philip over the army so that he might rear his son Antiochus and gave him his ring, diadem, and robe to assign to his son. But Lysias, who then had Antiochus son of Antiochus with him, heard of the father’s death and himself established Antiochus as king of Syria in his father’s place, calling him Eupator. Lysias himself was commander of his army.
Meanwhile Judas sought to take the citadel of Zion, in which their enemies were. Many Jews and gentiles approached Antiochus Eupator and Lysias, requesting aid against Judas. When he heard them, the angry king assembled a very great army: one hundred thousand infantrymen, twenty thousand horsemen, and thirty-two elephants trained for battle. The elephants bore wooden towers, upon each of which were thirty-two strong fighting men; a thousand armed infantrymen and five hundred soldiers surrounded each beast in battle. They showed these animals the blood of grapes and mulberries to sharpen their spirit for battle. When the sun shone upon the golden shields, the mountains reflected their light like lamps of fire.
Judas and his army approached in battle and killed six hundred men from the king’s army. A certain Eleazar, whom the Comestor calls Judas’s brother, saw one of the beasts ornamented with royal trappings and taller than the rest. Thinking that the king was seated there, he passed through the midst of the enemy and approached it. Placing himself beneath its body, he wounded it with his sword, and when it fell dead it crushed him.
When Judas and his men saw the king’s strength and the army’s assault, they turned away from them. The king’s forces advanced against them to Jerusalem. While they remained in the siege, Lysias heard that Philip, whom Antiochus had appointed over the affairs of the kingdom as he was dying, had come and taken dominion over Antioch. He advised the king to make peace with Judas and his companions and permit them to observe their lawful rites, because it was for this reason that they had rebelled against his father, and especially because they needed to take thought for the kingdom. This advice was followed.
Menelaus, of whom mention was made above, urged King Antiochus to make war against Judas under a pretense of piety, hoping that he himself might thereby be established in the principality. Lysias told the king that this man was the cause of all their evils. The angry king therefore ordered him killed and cast from a high tower into ashes, as is contained in 2 Maccabees 11.
Although peace had been made, the king himself immediately acted against the oath taken concerning it and ordered the wall around the citadel of Zion destroyed. Hastening back to Antioch, he found Philip ruling the city; but he fought against him and took the city by force.
§ XVI. Demetrius, Alcimus, and Nicanor
In the 151st year, Demetrius son of Seleucus departed from the city of Rome and landed with a few men in a maritime city. This Demetrius was first cousin to the last Antiochus: for Seleucus, father of this Demetrius, and Antiochus Epiphanes, father of this Antiochus Eupator, were brothers. But when Seleucus died, it was not his son Demetrius but Seleucus’s brother Antiochus who usurped the kingdom of Syria for himself, and Demetrius went to Rome.
When Demetrius returned to his father’s kingdom, the troops who were with Lysias and Antiochus son of Antiochus seized Lysias himself and Antiochus. At Demetrius’s request, the army killed Lysias and Antiochus.
After Demetrius received the kingdom of Syria, a certain very wicked man of priestly stock named Alcimus approached him. As is said in 2 Maccabees 13, he had been high priest. He offered the king a golden crown and certain other things, claiming that he intended to serve the interests of the king and the Jewish people. He complained that the priesthood had been unjustly taken from him and accused Judas Maccabeus of many things.
The king then sent Bacchides with an army and established Alcimus as high priest. Alcimus pretended that he wished to make peace with Judas and his men, deceived them, and, together with Bacchides, killed many of the people. Alcimus exerted himself greatly for the sake of the supremacy of his priesthood. When he could not prevail against Judas, he returned to the king and accused him of many things.
Demetrius sent Nicanor with troops. He was the foremost of the king’s commanders and was to capture Judas, disperse his men, and establish Alcimus as high priest. When Nicanor arrived and heard of the courage of Judas and his companions, he made peace with him, and they lived together in Jerusalem.
When Alcimus observed this and their affection for one another, he came to King Demetrius and reported it. In anger Demetrius wrote that he bore that friendship gravely and ordered Nicanor to send Judas to him in chains. Nicanor sought to capture him treacherously, but Judas perceived this and took precautions for himself. Nicanor then proceeded openly against him. When the priests showed him the sacrifices that they offered for the king, he mocked them, stretched out his hand against the temple, and declared that he himself would burn it unless they delivered Judas into his hands.
Nicanor heard that a certain venerable man named Razias lived in Jerusalem, who because of his affection was called the father of the Jews. He sent many men to his house to seize him. When Razias was on the point of being captured, he struck himself with his sword. Since he did not die from the wound, he cast himself from the wall into the crowd. Still breathing, he raised himself and stood upon a rock. Grasping in his hands the entrails that came out of his body, he threw them into the crowd, calling upon the Ruler of life and spirit to return them to him again in this manner. Thus he died.
When they finally prepared for battle, Nicanor, uplifted with pride, thought that he would crush Judas, trusting in his own strength and multitude. Judas, trusting in the Lord’s aid, exhorted his companions to do the same. He armed them not with the defense of shield and spear but with the best words, recounting that in a dream he had seen Onias praying for the people and Jeremiah with him, giving Judas a golden sword and saying: “Receive this holy sword, a gift from God, with which you will cast down the adversaries.”
Judas and his men therefore fought with their hands but prayed to God with their hearts. They struck down thirty-five thousand from Nicanor’s army, and Nicanor himself was also killed. They cut off Nicanor’s head and the hand he had extended against the temple and hung them up. They cut his tongue into small pieces and cast it to the birds. Thus they returned with a very great victory to Jerusalem, gave thanks to God, and decreed that a feast in honor of so great a victory should be celebrated annually. This is the end of the second book of Maccabees.
When Judas heard the name of the Romans—because they were mighty in strength, agreed to everything asked of them, and established friendships and battles with all who approached them—and learned also the good qualities attributed to them in chapter 8 of the first book, Judas and his followers, by their common counsel, chose Eupolemus son of John and Jason son of Eleazar as their envoys. They sent them to Rome to establish friendship and alliance with the Romans.
Arriving at the city, they entered the Senate and explained in the council the purpose of their embassy. The Romans agreed to enter peace and alliance with them. They therefore inscribed upon bronze tablets that the Romans and the Jews should in turn bring aid against those making war upon whichever of them war first assailed.
Meanwhile, when Demetrius heard of Nicanor’s death, he again sent Bacchides, leader of the army, and Alcimus into Judea. They came and pitched camp against Judas. Many of Judas’s army withdrew from him out of fear of the enemy’s multitude, and he remained with only eight hundred. His companions advised him to avoid the contest and withdraw, but he refused. He proceeded to battle; his army was defeated and he himself was killed.
Here it should be noted that after making peace and an alliance with the Romans, he was defeated and killed in the first battle.
The same thing happened to his brothers Jonathan and afterward Simon, perhaps because, abandoning confidence in divine aid, they trusted too much in the strength of men.
After Judas had died and been mourned and buried, they all chose his brother Jonathan as their leader and prince. The sons of Jambri seized and killed John, Jonathan’s brother. When these sons of Jambri afterward celebrated a solemn wedding to which many people of consequence came, Jonathan and Simon laid an ambush. As the bridegroom and bride proceeded with a great company and with musicians, Jonathan and Simon rose against them and made a great slaughter in vengeance for the blood of their brother John.
Thereafter Bacchides came against Jonathan near the Jordan but was defeated by him, with many killed. When the most wicked Alcimus, who had sought to be restored to the high priesthood, ordered the walls of the temple destroyed, he was struck with paralysis. He could no longer speak and died in great torment.
Bacchides returned to King Demetrius. After two years, at the instigation of certain Jews, they summoned Bacchides back, seeking treacherously to capture Jonathan while he was living in peace and therefore more securely. But the treacheries were detected, and Jonathan protected himself by killing the traitors. Bacchides advanced against Jonathan in battle but was defeated. Indignant at those who had recalled him to Judea, he killed many of them. After making peace with Jonathan and returning the captives, Bacchides went back to his own region, no longer to molest him.
§ XVII. Jonathan under Alexander and Demetrius
In the 160th year, Alexander, son of the Antiochus who had been killed with Lysias by his own army at Demetrius’s insistence, came to Ptolemais, captured it, and began to reign there. Hearing this, Demetrius assembled an army against him and sought to enter an alliance with Jonathan, leader of the Jews. He sent letters to seek Jonathan’s friendship, ordering that the hostages in the citadel be returned to him, along with many other concessions.
When Alexander heard this, he too sought Jonathan’s friendship by sending letters for that purpose. He appointed him high priest and gave him a golden crown, purple, and many other things. When Demetrius perceived this, he was saddened and again wrote to Jonathan, offering him much more than Alexander had offered so that he would give him aid. Jonathan did not consent to these proposals but allied himself with Alexander.
Alexander met King Demetrius and his army in battle, defeated and killed him, and routed his army. Afterward Alexander asked Ptolemy, king of Egypt, to give him his daughter Cleopatra as wife, which he did. Jonathan was invited to the wedding celebrated at Ptolemais. When he came, Alexander and Ptolemy honored him greatly. Although certain pestilential men brought complaints against Jonathan, Alexander did not listen to them. Rather, he caused Jonathan to be clothed in purple and led through the city by his princes, while a herald commanded that no one should bring any charge against Jonathan in any matter.
In the 165th year, Demetrius, son of the Demetrius killed by Alexander, came from Crete into the land of his fathers. He appointed Apollonius, governor of Coele-Syria, commander of his army. Apollonius wrote Jonathan and challenged him to battle. When they fought together, Jonathan prevailed against him, killing eight thousand adversaries and burning many of their cities.
Ptolemy, king of Egypt, assembled a very great army and deceitfully sought to obtain the kingdom of his son-in-law Alexander. As Ptolemy passed through many of Alexander’s cities with his consent, Alexander being ignorant of his malice, Ptolemy took them for himself. After his enmity was discovered, he took his daughter Cleopatra away from Alexander and gave her to Demetrius son of Demetrius, pretending that he acted thus because Alexander had sought to kill him.
When battle was joined between Ptolemy and Alexander, Alexander was defeated and fled into Arabia to protect himself there. But the prince of Arabia cut off Alexander’s head and sent it to Ptolemy. Three days after receiving it, Ptolemy died.
Demetrius son of Demetrius therefore reigned in Syria in the 167th year. When Jonathan was summoned to meet him, he came to Ptolemais and was received honorably. Demetrius established him in the supremacy of the priesthood, conferred many other things, and granted his requests.
A certain Tryphon, who had been the chief man of Alexander’s party, saw that the whole army murmured against Demetrius. He went to the Arab Hemalcuel, who was raising Antiochus son of Alexander, so that Hemalcuel might deliver the boy to him to reign in his father’s place. Demetrius saw his army leave him to join Tryphon and sent to Jonathan for auxiliaries. Jonathan sent him three thousand men at Antioch.
One hundred and twenty thousand men had assembled there against King Demetrius to kill him. The men sent by Jonathan ran through the city in the king’s defense, killed one hundred thousand of them, and burned part of the city. Thus they delivered the king, while the remainder cast down their arms and sought peace from him. Glorified and renowned in the kingdom, the Jews returned to Jerusalem with much spoil.
But when Demetrius sat peacefully in his kingdom, he dealt falsely with Jonathan concerning what he had promised. Most ungratefully, he estranged himself from him and afflicted him severely.
Antiochus, together with Tryphon, assembled many nations, came to Antioch, captured it, and placed the diadem upon himself. He wrote Jonathan to establish friendship, at the same time appointing him to the priesthood. To make him the king’s friend, he sent gifts of gold and silver vessels, gave him the right to drink from gold, to wear purple, and to bear a golden clasp, and made his brother Simon leader in certain places.
When Jonathan entered battle against foreigners, his army fled from him. But he recalled it to himself through prayer and prevailed against them, killing three thousand.
Afterward Jonathan sent envoys to renew friendship with the Spartans and Romans. Among other things it is said there: “Having as consolation the holy books that are in our hands, we nevertheless preferred to send to you to renew fraternity and friendship.” They recounted the tribulations they had suffered, their deliverance through God’s aid, and that they remembered the Spartans and Romans in their sacrifices and prayers. Demetrius arose against Jonathan with great forces to defeat him but could not prevail.
Tryphon, however, intending to take the kingdom of Asia for himself, planned to kill King Antiochus. But fearing that Jonathan might impede him, he sought to capture Jonathan. When Jonathan came to meet him with forty thousand chosen men, Tryphon said that it was unnecessary to trouble so great a multitude. Instead, Jonathan should retain a few men with him and go with Tryphon to Ptolemais, so that Tryphon might deliver the city to him.
Believing this, Jonathan dismissed the others and entered Ptolemais with only a thousand men. Once inside, he was captured and all his companions were killed. Tryphon also sent his army to destroy the other men whom Jonathan had sent into Galilee, but, warned by Jonathan’s capture, they resisted them bravely.
§ XVIII. Simon, the Last of the Maccabees
When Jonathan’s brother Simon heard that Tryphon intended to advance into Judea to destroy it because its people had lost their prince, he went up to Jerusalem and before all the people offered to expose himself to death for the people’s defense, as his brothers had done. They accepted this most gratefully and appointed him their leader.
When Tryphon came into Judea, bringing the captive Jonathan with him, he learned that Simon had been made leader. He sent envoys to him, pretending that he had detained Jonathan because of a great sum of money owed to the king and promising that he would release him if Simon sent the money and two of Jonathan’s sons as hostages. Simon perceived that he spoke deceitfully. Nevertheless, he sent the money demanded and Jonathan’s sons, lest he make the people hateful toward him by giving them occasion to say that Jonathan had been killed because he had not sent the sons and the money. But Tryphon lied.
When Tryphon saw that he could not prevail against them because Simon resisted bravely, he killed Jonathan and his sons and returned to his own land. Simon took the bodies of Jonathan and his sons and buried them with their ancestors in the city of Modin, making great mourning over him. He built seven high pyramids above their grave: for his father and mother and his four brothers.
The aforesaid Tryphon, while making a journey with the young King Antiochus, treacherously killed him and reigned in his place. Simon sent to King Demetrius to obtain remission for his region. Demetrius granted it and wrote back to him as high priest, saying among other things: “We have received the crown that you sent. We are prepared to make a great peace with you. We remit to you the offenses and errors down to the present day, as well as the golden crown; and if anything else in Jerusalem was subject to tribute, let it now no longer be tributary.”
Thus in the 170th year the yoke of the gentiles was removed from Israel, in the first year under Simon, high priest, leader, and prince of the Jews. He came to the city of Gaza and besieged it. When its people sought peace, he did not destroy it in battle but captured the city, cast out its inhabitants, and cleansed it of images. He then besieged the citadel of Jerusalem. When those within failed from hunger, they sought and received peace, surrendering the citadel. When Simon saw that his son John was a warlike and valiant man, he appointed him commander of the armies.
In the 172nd year, King Demetrius went into Media to obtain aid to defeat Tryphon. When Arsaces, king of Persia and Media, heard this, he sent one of his princes, who crushed Demetrius’s army and brought him captive to Arsaces. The land of Judah was quiet throughout all the days of Simon, and peace and friendship between the Jews, Romans, and Spartans were renewed.
Simon therefore sent the envoy Numenius to Rome, bearing a golden shield weighing one thousand minas, in order to establish an alliance with them. The Romans accepted it and wrote friendly letters to the Jews in praise of Simon. King Demetrius also heard that the Jews had been called friends, allies, and brethren by the Romans, that they had received Simon’s envoys gloriously, and that the Jews and their priests had agreed that Simon should be high priest and leader forever, until a faithful prophet should arise. He therefore also made Simon his friend and, so that this might be apparent, honored him with purple and a golden clasp.
After this, Antiochus son of Demetrius wrote to Simon as high priest and leader of the Jews to gain his friendship. He declared that he granted every remission made by the kings before him, permitted Simon to strike his own coinage in his land, declared Jerusalem holy and free, and allowed him to retain the fortifications he had erected. He remitted every debt to the king and promised still greater things for the future.
In the 174th year, Antiochus son of Demetrius went into the land of his fathers, and the whole army assembled to him, so that few remained with Tryphon, who had usurped the kingdom of Syria for himself. Antiochus pursued Tryphon with one hundred and twenty thousand warriors and eight thousand horsemen and besieged the city of Dora, also bringing ships against it by sea, for Tryphon had fled into that city.
Simon sent Antiochus two thousand chosen auxiliaries and great gifts. Antiochus nevertheless refused to receive them, broke everything he had covenanted, and estranged himself from Simon. Antiochus sent one of his friends, Athenobius, to Simon, demanding that he restore Joppa, Gazara, and the citadel of Jerusalem, which he had taken from Antiochus, together with their tribute—or in their place one thousand talents in all—otherwise he would come to battle against him.
When Athenobius arrived in Jerusalem and saw Simon’s glory, he was astonished. In answer to the demand he presented from King Antiochus, Simon said that he possessed nothing belonging to the king, only what was his own. Indeed, he had obtained Joppa and Gazara by right of war because they had inflicted many evils upon the Jews. Athenobius returned to the king and reported these things, moving the king to anger.
Antiochus sent Cendebeus with forces to conquer Judea, while he himself pursued Tryphon, who fled by ship across the sea to Orthosaida.
John son of Simon reported this to his father. Simon, who was already old, encouraged his sons to fight against the adversaries of the people as he and his brothers had done, expecting aid from God. John therefore went out with his brother Judas to battle against Cendebeus. A river lay between the two armies, and when those with John feared to cross it, John crossed first and the others followed him. They met the enemy and routed Cendebeus and his men, killing two thousand of them, and John returned to Judea in peace.
A certain man named Ptolemy son of Abobus had been appointed commander in the plain of Jericho. He was the son-in-law of Simon the high priest and exceedingly rich. Desiring to make himself lord of that region, he plotted to kill Simon and his sons.
While Simon traveled through the cities of Judea with two of his sons, Judas and Mattathias, caring for his nation, he went down to Jericho. Ptolemy treacherously received them in a certain small fortress. After preparing a great banquet for them there, he caused Simon and his sons to be killed during it. He immediately sent word to the king to dispatch forces to him and promised to surrender the region and its cities. He also sent men to Gazara to kill John, Simon’s son. But John had been forewarned of what had happened and killed the men who came to slay him. John himself then remained prince of the Jews and at the same time high priest, in the 176th year of the kingdom of the Greeks.
This, then, is the end of the book of Maccabees. From its deeds you may learn how great are the adversities that must be borne for the defense and observance of the evangelical law, since they suffered so many and such great things for the observance of the Mosaic law, which was a figure of it. From the frequent change of kings and princes, and from their deaths, it must also be observed that the life of every earthly power is brief and therefore to be despised.
§ XIX. John Hyrcanus
After the death of Simon, the last of the Maccabees, sacred Scripture contains nothing more concerning the matters that follow until Christ, of whom the Gospels speak. What follows is instead excerpted from the scholastic histories, whose author is said to be Peter Comestor.
John, called Hyrcanus after the Hyrcanians he defeated, succeeded in Judea to the leadership and pontificate. Josephus commends him for three things: diligence in the religion of the priesthood, energy in leadership, and the gift of prophecy.
After assuming rule, he pursued Ptolemy, who had treacherously killed his father and held his mother and two young brothers in chains. Ptolemy fled to a fortress beyond Jericho called Agon. John besieged the stronghold and pressed sharply to capture him. To make him cease the attack, however, Ptolemy caused John’s mother and the children to be beaten upon the walls until they bled. Broken by filial devotion, John restrained himself, although his mother cried to John from the wall not to leave Ptolemy’s crime unavenged on her account, for she judged her own death better than immortality.
The siege was consequently prolonged until the seventh year arrived, which was a holiday for the Jews. John withdrew from the siege of Ptolemy, who killed John’s mother and brothers and fled to Zeno, tyrant of Philadelphia.
After this Antiochus, king of Syria, besieged Jerusalem. John Hyrcanus therefore opened two of the eight treasure chambers surrounding David’s tomb and took from them more than three thousand talents. He gave Antiochus three hundred talents to withdraw from the siege. To quiet the people’s murmuring over the opening of the tomb, he used the remaining money to establish a hospice in Jerusalem for the poor.
He captured Samaria and leveled it to the ground; afterward Herod rebuilt it and called it Sebaste. John died after administering affairs excellently for thirty-three years. He left five sons after him: Aristobulus the firstborn, Antigonus, and three younger sons. Because none of them was fit to govern the people, John placed his very eloquent wife over Judea and over his sons.
Aristobulus, unable to endure his mother’s rule, bound his mother and his three younger brothers in prison. He established Antigonus, the brother born next after himself, whom he loved, as second to him. He placed the diadem upon himself, and the kingdom of Judea was restored.
For 475 years and three months had elapsed from Zedekiah, king of Judah, under whom the kingdom had been interrupted, or from the return from the Babylonian captivity. Hence it is frequently read that the kingdom was interrupted until Aristobulus and Hyrcanus, that is, until Aristobulus son of Hyrcanus.
Aristobulus nevertheless reigned for only one year, because he had killed his mother by hunger in chains. While Aristobulus lay sick in the tower afterward called Antonia, Antigonus returned from Galilee, where he had done many illustrious deeds, clothed in new and becoming armor. As he entered Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles to honor his brother and to display the beauty of the armor to the people, he entered armed.
When his rivals saw this, and especially his brother’s wife, who had cast her eyes upon him but to whom he did not give his consent, they accused him to Aristobulus, saying: “Your brother, hearing that you are ill, has entered with a strong and armed hand to kill you and reign. You can prove it in this way: command him to come to you. If he comes armed, be certain concerning the things we say.”
At his wife’s suggestion, Aristobulus therefore stationed armed men in an underground passage called Strato’s Tower, through which Antigonus would pass, so that they might kill him if he came armed. Summoning his brother, Aristobulus instructed the messenger to tell him not to come to him armed. But the queen corrupted the messenger with gifts so that he would tell him to come armed, because the king desired to see him in the splendor of his armor.
When Hyrcanus therefore passed armed through Strato’s Tower, he was killed by the armed men. Hearing of his brother’s death, the king became so weakened by illness that he vomited blood from his lacerated entrails. One of the servants appointed to this task carried it outside and accidentally spilled it, where Antigonus had been killed, upon the stains of blood that still remained.
Seeing this, the people cried out and declared that, by God’s will and in vengeance for the murdered brother, the killer’s blood had been poured out as a libation—that is, spilled. When the king asked the cause of the outcry, no one dared tell him. At last, when he threatened punishment for their silence, they told him the truth.
Groaning, he said: “It was not right that my crimes should be hidden from the light of God. How long will this wicked body detain a soul condemned to my mother and brother? Would that I might pour out my blood to them not little by little, but that they might receive the whole draught at once.” Having said these things, he expired.
After his death, because his wife had borne no offspring by him, she released her husband’s brothers from chains and established the eldest, Alexander, as king. He was surnamed Jannaeus and also appeared to surpass the others in moderation. He killed the second brother because he appeared to aspire to the kingdom and compelled the third to live privately with him. He took as wife Salome, who was also called Alexandra.
This Jannaeus was so exceedingly wicked that within seven years he killed about fifty thousand elders because they detested his crimes. When he had offended the people, he fortified a palace for himself in the tower called Baris. Titus afterward marveled that the Jews had abandoned it, since it could be defended by two men against every living person.
He had so greatly offended the Jews that when he once asked them how he might pacify them, they answered, “If you were to die.” On this account he hanged eight hundred married men in the streets of Jerusalem and killed their wives and children.
§ XX. Alexander Jannaeus and Queen Alexandra
In the 493rd year of the Fifth Age, the 3,866th year of the world—or according to the other computation of the greater number, the 5,103rd year—the ninth Ptolemy, also called Alexander, reigned in Egypt. He reigned nine years.
At that time Alexander Jannaeus reigned among the Jews, and he reigned twenty-seven years. In Syria Antiochus Citenus reigned for thirty-eight years; after him Philip reigned two years. Finally Antiochus, fleeing even the Parthians, surrendered himself to Pompey. Afterward Philip was captured by Gabinius. Thus the kingdom of Syria came to an end in the eighth year of the aforesaid Ptolemy, and Syria, until then possessed by kings, came under the dominion of the Romans.
When the aforesaid Alexander Jannaeus had rested from battles and was afflicted by quartan fevers, he thought that his sickness had arisen from idleness and gave himself to the untimely labors of military service. He died in the thirty-eighth year of his reign, leaving two sons, Hyrcanus and Aristobulus.
Knowing that his sons would be hated by the Jews on account of their father, he left the kingdom to his wife. During her husband’s life she had won the goodwill of the people for herself by frequently resisting his tyranny and presenting a feigned religion in another guise. While she reigned, she declared Hyrcanus high priest, judging that he would become king because he was modest. But she compelled the younger son, Aristobulus, to live as a private person because he appeared to possess a fervent spirit.
At that time the sect of the Pharisees arose in Judea; in earlier times the sect of the Essenes had already arisen. Alexandra used the counsel of these Pharisees in everything, so that at their advice she either condemned all the leading men of the Jews to exile or killed them. Finally, she killed Diogenes, who had been Alexander’s closest friend.
She had assembled two armies of foreigners so that she might rage against the Jews more safely. Consequently many fled to Aristobulus so that they might be protected by his patronage. In the ninth year of her reign Queen Alexandra fell ill. Aristobulus assembled a large band of men and declared that he would reign after his mother. On this account his mother, moved by Hyrcanus’s complaints, confined Aristobulus’s wife and children in custody and took them as hostages, lest Aristobulus usurp the kingdom for himself.
After their mother died, Aristobulus assembled an army and took up arms against his brother Hyrcanus. When the brothers went out upon the plains of Jericho, Hyrcanus was defeated and fled to Jerusalem. At last they returned to concord under this condition: Aristobulus would reign, while Hyrcanus would exercise whatever honors he wished under him. They also exchanged houses.
§ XXI. Pompey and the Contest between the Brothers
Antipater the Idumean was with Hyrcanus. Fearing Antipater’s prudence and energy, Aristobulus brought calumnies against him. Antipater persuaded Hyrcanus to complain that he had been circumvented by treachery and to flee to Aretas, king of the Arabs, with whose aid he might return to the kingdom.
Departing by night, they came to the Arab king at a fortress called Petra, where his royal seat was. Aretas therefore assembled an army, came into Judea, and besieged Jerusalem. He would even have captured it had not Scaurus, the Roman commander, dissolved the siege.
Syria had already ceased to be a kingdom and become tributary to the Romans. Pompey had been sent by the Romans against Tigranes, king of Armenia, and Pompey had sent Scaurus as governor of Syria. When Scaurus heard of the brothers’ dissension in Judea, he judged it an opportunity to place Judea under tribute and entered its borders with a strong hand.
Envoys sent by each brother came to Scaurus and sought his aid on either side. Scaurus was corrupted by three hundred talents sent by Aristobulus—which Josephus testifies is characteristic of the Romans—and sent envoys to the Arabs, threatening them with the name of the Romans and of Pompey unless Aretas withdrew from the siege.
Aretas therefore withdrew and placed Hyrcanus and Antipater at Philadelphia. Frustrated in their hope in the Arabs, they placed their hope in their adversaries. When Pompey came to Damascus, many came to him with gifts so that he might judge the violence of Aristobulus worthy of hatred and restore Hyrcanus to the kingdom. Yet Aristobulus too did not fail himself, relying upon the corruption of Scaurus.
When Pompey did not show Aristobulus royal honor, Aristobulus indignantly departed without greeting him and withdrew into the fortress of Alexandrium because of its impregnable defenses. Pompey the Great pursued him with an assembled army of Romans and Syrians and ordered him to descend from the fortress to him.
Because Aristobulus was called to submit to the disgrace of being under Roman rule, he had determined rather to hazard himself than obey. Nevertheless, on the advice of his men he descended from the fortress. Leaving guards there, he commanded them to obey his orders only when given in letters written in his own hand. He then went to Jerusalem.
Pompey the Great immediately pursued him, having been made eager near Jericho by news of the death of Mithridates. There lies the very fertile region of Idumea, which nourishes many palms and balsam. By cutting its wood with sharp stones, they collect the dripping tear, that is, the gum, from the wounds.
As Pompey hastened toward Jerusalem, the frightened Aristobulus met him, promising the money that was in the fortress of Alexandrium and declaring that he would henceforth obey Roman rule. But none of these things was done. Gabinius was sent to receive the money, but the guards did not even admit him into the fortress. Moved by this, Pompey placed Aristobulus in custody.
When Pompey besieged Jerusalem, dissension arose in the city. The supporters of Aristobulus contended that the city should be defended, while the supporters of Hyrcanus contended that it should be surrendered to the Romans. The defeated party of Aristobulus fled into the temple, while Pompey was received into the city and assaulted the temple.
As they filled the northern valley with earthworks, the work would have remained unfinished had Pompey not ordered the embankment to be constructed during the observance of the seventh days—that is, the sabbaths—on which it is not lawful for the Jews to work. In the third month the sanctuary was broken into. Faustus Cornelius, son of Sulla, was the first who dared enter, and the Romans rushed in and profaned the temple. Elsewhere it is read that they stabled horses in the porticoes.
For this reason it is related that Pompey, who until then had been most fortunate in war, never afterward fought a battle without being defeated. On the next day Pompey entered the temple. He marveled at its situation, adornment, and religion but took nothing from it, ordering the keepers of the sanctuary to cleanse the temple from filth.
After imposing tribute upon the Jerusalemites and declaring Hyrcanus high priest, he took Aristobulus captive with him to Rome, together with two of his sons and the same number of daughters. He proceeded through Sicily and entrusted the administration of Syria and Judea to Scaurus, leaving two cohorts with him.
Alexander son of Aristobulus escaped during the journey. With a great armed band he laid waste Judea and threatened Hyrcanus. He held the very strongly fortified places Alexandrium, Archanum, and Macheronta.
Gabinius was sent to Syria to succeed Scaurus, and Marcus Antonius also served under him. When Gabinius had besieged Alexandrium with a very great host, Alexander surrendered himself and the fortress of Alexandrium to him on his mother’s advice. At the counsel of the same woman, Gabinius utterly destroyed the fortress so that it would not become a refuge for another war. The woman was indeed flattering Gabinius with services, fearing for her husband and the other captives who had been led to Rome.
After this, Gabinius entrusted the care of the temple to Hyrcanus and divided the nation of the Jews into five councils, breaking the pride of Judea as though by a pentarchy. At that time Antipater became a very close friend of Gabinius and Marcus Antonius. He grew so distinguished that a wife named Cyprus, niece of the king of the Arabs, was given to him.
By her he fathered four sons and a daughter. The firstborn was Phasaelus; the second, Herod, who was afterward called the Ascalonite; the third, Josippus; and the fourth, Pheroras. The daughter was called Salomia.
After this Aristobulus escaped from Rome by chance. Having assembled a great band of Jews, he was rebuilding the wall around Alexandrium. Antonius was sent by Gabinius to defeat him. Aristobulus and his sons were captured again and taken to Rome. The Senate confined Aristobulus in custody but sent the sons back to Judea, because Gabinius wrote that he had promised this to Aristobulus’s wife in return for the surrender of the fortresses.
Afterward, while Gabinius was detained in Egypt, Alexander son of Aristobulus again led the Jews into dissension. But Gabinius returned, made peace, and confirmed Hyrcanus in the pontificate.
After Gabinius’s death, Crassus was sent from Rome as governor of Syria to repel the Parthians, who were now threatening the Romans. For the expenses of the Parthian campaign, he took from the temple almost all the gold from which Pompey had abstained, two thousand talents. On account of this he fell with molten gold poured into his mouth, and it was said to him: “You thirsted for gold; drink gold.” Cassius succeeded him as governor of Syria and used Antipater’s counsel in all things.
At that time dissension arose among the Romans over Pompey and Julius Caesar. After Pompey’s flight across the Ionian Sea, Caesar gained possession of all affairs and of Rome. He released Aristobulus and sent him into Syria with two cohorts, judging that through him he could easily subject Judea to himself.
But Caesar’s hope was frustrated, for Aristobulus died by poison at the hands of the studiosi, that is, the friends of Pompey. His son Alexander was also killed at Antioch, struck with the axe according to Pompey’s letters, after an accusation concerning the things he had committed against the Romans had first been heard before the tribunal.
Only Antigonus survived. With his sisters he fled to a certain Ptolemy son of Mennaeus, who dwelt beneath Lebanon. Ptolemy took Antigonus’s younger sister Alexandra as wife. By her, as some relate, he fathered a son named Lysanias, who was afterward tetrarch of Abilene.
After this a battle was fought in Emathia between the Pompeian and Caesarian parties. Emathia is named from Emath; it is Reblatha, afterward called Antioch or Epiphania. Antipater, father of Herod the Ascalonite, was present in this battle with Jews on Pompey’s side.
When Antipater returned to Judea, fearing Caesar’s attack, he sent his children to their Arab kinsmen. After Pompey died, Antipater placed himself under Caesar’s patronage. Caesar sent Mithridates of Pergamum to conquer Pelusium and sent with him Nicholas Ptolemy and Antipater with three thousand Jews.
There Antipater’s courage shone especially. He was the first to climb over the wall. By his prudence he also inclined the Memphites to Caesar’s service. When battle was joined with the Egyptians and many were killed, Antipater’s entire body was pierced with wounds, but against expectation he survived the battle.
After victory was obtained, he had Mithridates as a witness before Caesar to his deeds, while Marcus Antonius also commended him in many respects. He became Caesar’s friend. Caesar gave him Roman immunity and citizenship and, for his sake, confirmed Hyrcanus in the pontificate.
At that time Antigonus, brother of Aristobulus mentioned above, accused Antipater and Hyrcanus before Caesar, saying that by their counsel his brother and father had perished. In response Antipater cast off his garment, displayed the multitude of his wounds, and said there was no need for words, since his scars cried out, even if he remained silent, that he had been faithful to the Romans, while Antigonus had been their son. For no one could draw Antipater away from Pompey while he lived, nor would anyone now be able to tear him from Caesar.
Caesar then gave Antipater the choice of any dignity under the high priest in Judea. Setting aside the measure of a dignity, Antipater was declared procurator of Judea under Caesar. He also obtained permission to rebuild the overthrown walls of his country. Caesar granted the kingdom to Hyrcanus as well, yet so that he should not be called king, and appointed his own kinsman Sextus over Syria.
§ XXII. Antipater’s Sons
After this Antipater appointed his elder son Phasaelus as procurator under him at Jerusalem and placed Herod over Galilee. Herod was energetic, for he killed the leader of robbers, Hezekiah, together with his followers. He rendered the land so quiet that Herod was publicly sung of as the father of Galilee.
Phasaelus likewise strove with honorable rivalry to surpass his brother’s character. For this reason, and because their father conducted royal affairs through their services, he too was honored. Yet on this account they were no less faithful to Hyrcanus.
Nevertheless, it is impossible for anyone to escape envy in deeds well performed. There were men who told Hyrcanus that, after affairs had been entrusted to Antipater and his sons, Hyrcanus himself sat with the empty name of king. Gradually inflamed by these words, Hyrcanus ordered Herod summoned to state his case.
After first fortifying Galilee, Herod hastened to the king, carrying with him a letter from Sextus ordering Hyrcanus to absolve Herod from every charge and fault. Not long afterward Herod was made commander of Sextus’s army. Herod would then have avenged upon Hyrcanus the insult of the aforesaid summons had his father and brother not mitigated his assault.
Meanwhile Caesar was treacherously killed by Brutus and Cassius, as will be related more fully below. After this Cassius came into Syria, of which he had formerly been governor. Assembling an army against the young Octavian Augustus and Marcus Antonius, he exacted seventy talents from the Jews. Herod was the first to bring one hundred talents from Galilee and thereby earned the favor of Cassius, who bore the delay of the others indignantly. Herod also went with Cassius to the battle; if he obtained victory, Cassius promised him the kingdom of Judea.
At that time one of Hyrcanus’s friends, named Mallichus, was with him and aspired to the priesthood. When he resolved to attack Hyrcanus with poison, he determined first to attack Antipater, forgetful of his benefits. Antipater, Herod’s father, therefore received poison through a servant and died.
Mallichus, when he was suspected of Antipater’s death, excused himself to Herod in many ways. Herod complained to Cassius concerning his father’s death and received a written reply from him authorizing him to avenge treachery by treachery. Cassius wrote to the chiliarchs that they should aid Herod in this matter.
Herod invited Hyrcanus and Mallichus to dinner. While they were on their way, the chiliarchs—that is, men who had a thousand soldiers under them—surrounded Mallichus and killed him. Hyrcanus collapsed, overcome with stupor. When his spirit had scarcely returned, he asked Herod who had killed Mallichus. When one of them replied, “At Cassius’s command,” Hyrcanus said, “Cassius has kept both me and my country safe by killing the man who plotted against us both.”
Not long afterward, while Herod lay ill at Damascus, Phoenix, brother of Mallichus, took up arms against Phasaelus in vengeance for his brother, supported by the aid of Hyrcanus. When Herod recovered, he attempted to attack Hyrcanus, but through affinity they returned to concord.
Herod had a wife named Doside, but she was lowborn; by her he fathered Antipater. He married in addition Mariamne, granddaughter of Hyrcanus. For love of her he even had himself circumcised and became a proselyte. Herod indeed had nine wives, from seven of whom he received innumerable offspring.
It will suffice to enumerate a few of these: his firstborn Antipater by Doris; Alexander and Aristobulus by Mariamne; Archelaus by Matica the Samaritan; and Herod Antipas, who was afterward tetrarch, and Philip by Cleopatra of Jerusalem. Some, however, think that this Herod was Mariamne’s son.
After Cassius was killed on the Philippian fields, Caesar departed for Italy and Antonius for Syria. The leading men of the Jews accused Phasaelus and Herod before Antonius, alleging that they possessed the chief power by force and that only the name remained to Hyrcanus.
Herod pacified Antonius with gifts, recalling to his memory his father’s former friendship with him. When the Jewish men came again to Antioch to accuse him, with Hyrcanus also present, Antonius asked Hyrcanus who were most fit to administer affairs. When Hyrcanus preferred Herod and his brothers to the others, the delighted Antonius declared these same men procurators of Judea.
After Antonius went to Rome, Pacorus, king of the Parthians, crossed the Euphrates with a strong force. Lysanias came down to him—he was a son of Antigonus and a grandson of Ptolemy by Alexandra, as was said above—and promised him one thousand talents and five hundred women if he would place Antigonus in the kingdom.
Having consequently received many thousands of Parthians from Pacorus, Antigonus assaulted Jerusalem. Phasaelus guarded the walls, while Herod guarded the royal house. But when Antigonus entered the city on the day of Pentecost, fighting took place even in the marketplace.
When negotiations for peace began, Antigonus deceitfully requested the king of the Parthians as arbiter of the peace. Hyrcanus, Phasaelus, and Antigonus went out and hastened to the Parthian king. But Herod refused to go down with them, for his wife Mariamne advised him never to place trust in the good faith of the Parthians.
Hyrcanus and Phasaelus were seized by the Parthians on the journey. When Herod learned this, he fled by night to his Idumean kinsmen. He sent his wife, children, and all his household goods ahead and, following behind them, withstood the attacks of their pursuers. He found the Jews who pursued him more grievous than the Parthians and fought with them at the sixtieth stade from Jerusalem. There, because of his incredible victory, he afterward fortified a very strong fortress that he called Herodium.
Leaving his wives and children in the fortress of Masada under the protection of his brother Josippus, he proceeded to Petra, the city of the Arabs. The Parthians not only restored Antigonus to the kingdom but also delivered Phasaelus and Hyrcanus to him to be beaten.
Antigonus bit off Hyrcanus’s ears, lest, if circumstances changed and he were released, he should receive the pontificate, for sacred rites ought to be celebrated by one who is whole. But he was forestalled by the courage of Phasaelus, who, since he had neither access to a weapon nor free hands, broke his head against a rock and expired. When he learned that Herod had escaped, he said that he wished to die with an even mind because he left an avenger alive.
There are some who say concerning Hyrcanus that a physician was sent to him by Antigonus, who poured poison into his ears as though it were medicine, and that he died. Josephus, however, relates that he was sent to the Parthians and long held in derision.
When Herod learned of his brother’s death, he hastened to Rome, not deterred by the harshness of winter. After his ship was wrecked near Pamphylia and repaired at Rhodes, he proceeded to Rome and first explained the reason for his journey to Antonius. Antonius marveled at his misfortunes, took pity upon him, and persuaded the Senate to declare him king of Judea.
Herod was therefore crowned and led to the Capitol, with Augustus and Antonius standing on either side of him. The decree of the Senate concerning this act was deposited there. Herod was sent back to Judea with two leaders, Ventidius and Silo, to establish him in the kingdom.
When they came into Galilee, Antigonus corrupted Silo with a payment. For this reason they postponed meeting Antigonus in battle by inventing pretexts. When they finally besieged Jerusalem, the Romans, frightened both by the harshness of winter and by scarcity of provisions, withdrew from the siege and wintered in Idumea and Galilee.
Herod was nevertheless not idle then, for he pursued the multitude of robbers and even suffocated them in caves. At that time Antonius was staying near Athens and was already held by love for Cleopatra. Herod hastened to him to make a complaint concerning Silo’s deceit.
Meanwhile Sosius—or, according to others, Josippus—despised Herod’s command and fought against Antigonus so that he might perform some illustrious deed. He was defeated and beheaded by Papius, commander of Antigonus’s army, and Antigonus inhumanly attacked his severed head with his spurs.
When Antonius learned of Silo’s deceit, he sent Sosius with Herod and a strong force. Coming into Judea, Herod defeated Papius as he met him and sent his head to his brother Pheroras as consolation for their murdered brother.
At last, after Jerusalem had been besieged for five months, the Romans rushed into it in the sixth month and spared no age, although Herod begged them to show mercy. Antigonus likewise came down and prostrated himself at the feet of Sosius. Sosius had no pity upon him but mocked him, called him Antigona, and cast him into chains.
When the entire multitude of soldiers was incited to see the sacred objects and despoil the sanctuary, Herod restrained them, saying that victory would be more bitter for him than if he had been defeated. He reproached Sosius with leaving him king of a solitude if the city were emptied of its wealth, and promised that he would give each soldier payment from his own resources.
When he had fulfilled his promise, Sosius returned to Antonius, bringing Antigonus bound with a golden chain. Antonius struck him with the axe. Herod was confirmed in the kingdom of Judea in the fourth year after he had received the diadem at Rome. Hence one sometimes reads more and sometimes fewer years for Herod’s reign.
Dissension arose between Mariamne and Herod’s sister Salonia. Salonia reproached Mariamne with harlotry, and Mariamne reproached Salonia with low birth. At his sister’s advice Herod treacherously killed Hyrcanus.
This is according to those who say that Hyrcanus did not die after Antigonus cut off his ears, but returned to Jerusalem after Herod was established in the kingdom and was restored to his former status in the priesthood, though without administration. Herod killed Hyrcanus under the pretext that Hyrcanus said the kingdom was owed to him.
As consolation to Mariamne, Hyrcanus’s granddaughter, Herod ordained her brother Jonathan as high priest when he was seventeen years old. At Mariamne’s request, whom he loved beyond measure, he expelled Doris and her son Antipater from Jerusalem, permitting them to go up to Jerusalem to worship only on the three solemn feasts. Conversely, at Salonia’s suggestion Jonathan was killed because he appeared to aspire to the kingdom.
When Salonia accused Mariamne of adultery, she added that Mariamne had expressly sent her image to Antonius in order to incite him to love her. To learn whether this was so, Herod hastened to Antonius, placing Mariamne under the custody of Salonia’s husband. He gave the man certain instructions among the signs, by which he was to kill Mariamne if Herod’s death were reported to him.
While Herod delayed, Salonia’s husband told Mariamne what had been commanded of him. When Herod returned, his wife slept upon his breast and tearfully told him that he had commanded her death. Leaping from the bed, Herod asked his sister, “Did your husband sleep with Mariamne?” She said, “He did.” Herod immediately caused Mariamne and his sister’s husband to be killed.
He grieved so greatly over the death of his wife Mariamne, whom he had loved beyond measure, that like a lunatic he frequently turned to madness. When he recovered, he recalled Antipater with his mother. But he sent the sons he had received from Mariamne, Aristobulus and Alexander, to Rome to be educated in the liberal arts.
In this way, as the advent of Christ approached, the kingdom was transferred from Judah to foreigners. For Herod, as was said, was an Idumean on his father’s side, since his father Antipater was from Idumea. On his mother’s side he was from Arabia, for his grandfather Antipater took as wife a woman named Cyprus, niece of the king of the Arabs, from whom Herod and his brothers were born. Nevertheless, Herod had himself circumcised so that he might have the Jewish woman Mariamne as wife.
Thus you may know that Jacob’s prophecy was fulfilled, in which he said in the penultimate chapter of Genesis: “The scepter shall not be taken away from Judah, nor a ruler from his thigh, until he who is to be sent shall come,” or, according to another reading, “the Messiah.”
The kingdom began in Saul or David and continued without interruption until Zedekiah, the last of David’s line, and until the transmigration. Afterward it was not entirely taken away but interrupted. For in the time of the Maccabees, although there was no kingdom or royal dignity, the leadership and principality of the Jewish people nevertheless belonged to those Maccabees, who were at once priests and leaders.
Before the time of the Maccabees, the more eminent men among that people were commonly from the tribe of Judah or Levi. Zerubbabel and Nehemiah, who returned from the Babylonian captivity with permission from Darius and Artaxerxes to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple, were of the tribe of Judah, while Ezra was of the tribe of Levi. Daniel and his companions were also of the tribe of Judah. During the captivity, under Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, and Darius, they were the foremost men over the provinces through their administrations of the kingdom.
But when the leadership or principality belonged to the tribe of Levi, as in the time of the Maccabees, who were from the tribe of Levi, it can nevertheless be said in some manner that the leadership of the people had not ceased from the tribe of Judah. This was because those two tribes—the royal tribe of Judah and the priestly tribe of Levi—contracted marriages with one another, as is evident in the wife of Aaron and the wife of the high priest Jehoiada, who were from the tribe of Judah. Thus, at least through the female line, the leaders were from the tribe of Judah.
The first descendant of the Maccabees to place the diadem upon himself and assume royal dignity was Alexander Jannaeus, as was said above. From him descended Hyrcanus, the last king from the Jewish people. But Antigonus removed him and afterward usurped the kingdom for himself; Antigonus was subsequently beheaded by Antonius.
The kingdom of Judea passed to Herod, having been conferred upon him at Rome by the Senate at the insistence and prayers of Antonius and Octavian Augustus. This Herod was a foreigner, partly Idumean and, through his mother, from Arabia. During his reign Christ was born, and the prophecy of Jacob mentioned above was fulfilled. Hence Matthew 2 says: “When Jesus was born in the days of Herod, king of Judea,” and so forth.