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1
Now a little while after Demetrius had been carried into captivity, Trypho
his governor destroyed Antiochus, 2
the son of Alexander, who was also called The God, 3
and this when he had reigned four years, though he gave it out that he
died under the hands of the surgeons. He then sent his friends, and those
that were most intimate with him, to the soldiers, and promised that he
would give them a great deal of money if they would make him king. He intimated
to them that Demetrius was made a captive by the Parthians; and that Demetrius's
brother Atitiochus, if he came to be king, would do them a great deal of
mischief, in way of revenge for their revolting from his brother. So the
soldiers, in expectation of the wealth they should get by bestowing the
kingdom on Trypho, made him their ruler. However, when Trypho had gained
the management of affairs, he demonstrated his disposition to be wicked;
for while he was a private person, he cultivated familiarity with the multitude,
and pretended to great moderation, and so drew them on artfully to whatsoever
he pleased; but when he had once taken the kingdom, he laid aside any further
dissimulation, and was the true Trypho; which behavior made his enemies
superior to him; for the soldiery hated him, and revolted from him to Cleopatra,
the wife of Demetrius, who was then shut up in Seleucia with her children.
But as Antiochus, the brother of Demetrius who was called Soter, was not
admitted by any of the cities on account of Trypho, Cleopatra sent to him,
and invited him to marry her, and to take the kingdom. The reasons why
she made this invitation were these: That her friends persuaded her to
it, and that she was afraid for herself, in case some of the people of
Seleucia should deliver up the city to Trypho.
1 It must here be diligently noted, that Josephus's copy of the First Book of Maccabees, which he had so carefully followed, and faithfully abridged, as far as the fiftieth verse of the thirteenth chapter, seems there to have ended. What few things there are afterward common to both, might probably be learned by him from some other more imperfect records. However, we must exactly observe here, what the remaining part of that book of the Maccabees informs us of, and what Josephus would never have omitted, had his copy contained so much, that this Simon the Great, the Maccabee, made a league with Antiochus Soter, the son of Demetrius Soter, and brother of the other Demetrius, who was now a captive in Parthis: that upon his coming to the crown, about the 140th year before the Christian sets, he granted great privileges to the Jewish nation, and to Simon their high priest and ethnarch; which privileges Simon seems to have taken of his own accord about three years before. In particular, he gave him leave to coin money for his country with his own stamp; and as concerning Jerusalem and the sanctuary, that they should be free, or, as the vulgar Latin hath it, "holy and free," 1 Macc. 15:6, 7, which I take to be the truer reading, as being the very words of his father's concession offered to Jonathan several years before, ch. 10:31; and Antiq. B, XIII. ch. 2. sect. 3. Now what makes this date and these grants greatly remarkable, is the state of the remaining genuine shekels of the Jews with Samaritan characters, which seem to have been (most of them at least) coined in the first four years of this Simon the Asamonean, and having upon them these words on one side, "Jerusalem the Holy ;" and on the reverse, "In the Year of Freedom," 1, or 2, or 3, or 4; which shekels therefore are original monuments of these times, and undeniable marks of the truth of the history in these chapters, though it be in great measure omitted by Josephus. See Essay on the Old Test. p. 157, 158. The reason why I rather suppose that his copy of the Maccabees wanted these chapters, than that his own copies are here imperfect, is this, that all their contents are not here omitted, though much the greatest part be.
2 How Trypho killed this Antiochus the epitome of Livy informs us, ch. 53, viz. that he corrupted his physicians or surgeons, who falsely pretending to the people that he was perishing with the stone, as they cut him for it, killed him, which exactly agrees with Josephus.
3 That this Antiochus, the son of Alexader Balas, was called "The God," is evident from his coins, which Spanheim assures us bear this inscription, "King Antiochus the God, Epiphanes the Victorious."
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
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