1
[
31]
AT the same time that Antiochus, who was called Epiphanes, had a
quarrel with the sixth Ptolemy about his right to the whole country of
Syria, a great sedition fell among the men of power in
Judea, and they
had a contention about obtaining the government; while each of those that
were of dignity could not endure to be subject to their equals. However,
Onias, one of the high priests, got the better, and cast the sons of Tobias
out of the city; who fled to Antiochus, and besought him to make use of
them for his leaders, and to make an expedition into
Judea. The king being
thereto disposed beforehand, complied with them, and came upon the Jews
with a great army, and took their city by force, and slew a great multitude
of those that favored Ptolemy, and sent out his soldiers to plunder them
without mercy. He also spoiled the temple, and put a stop to the constant
practice of offering a daily sacrifice of expiation for three years and
six months. But Onias, the high priest, fled to Ptolemy, and received a
place from him in the Nomus of
Heliopolis, where he built a city resembling
Jerusalem, and a temple that was like its temple
2
concerning which we shall speak more in its proper place hereafter.
[
34]
Now Antiochus was not satisfied either with his unexpected taking
the city, or with its pillage, or with the great slaughter he had made
there; but being overcome with his violent passions, and remembering what
he had suffered during the siege, he compelled the Jews to dissolve the
laws of their country, and to keep their infants uncircumcised, and to
sacrifice swine's flesh upon the altar; against which they all opposed
themselves, and the most approved among them were put to death. Bacchides
also, who was sent to keep the fortresses, having these wicked commands,
joined to his own natural barbarity, indulged all sorts of the extremest
wickedness, and tormented the worthiest of the inhabitants, man by man,
and threatened their city every day with open destruction, till at length
he provoked the poor sufferers by the extremity of his wicked doings to
avenge themselves.
[
36]
Accordingly Matthias, the son of Asamoneus, one of the priests who
lived in a village called Modin, armed himself, together with his own family,
which had five sons of his in it, and slew Bacchides with daggers; and
thereupon, out of the fear of the many garrisons [of the enemy], he fled
to the mountains; and so many of the people followed him, that he was encouraged
to come down from the mountains, and to give battle to Antiochus's generals,
when he beat them, and drove them out of
Judea. So he came to the government
by this his success, and became the prince of his own people by their own
free consent, and then died, leaving the government to Judas, his eldest
son.
[
38]
Now Judas, supposing that Antiochus would not lie still, gathered
an army out of his own countrymen, and was the first that made a league
of friendship with the Romans, and drove Epiphanes out of the country when
he had made a second expedition into it, and this by giving him a great
defeat there; and when he was warmed by this great success, he made an
assault upon the garrison that was in the city, for it had not been cut
off hitherto; so he ejected them out of the upper city, and drove the soldiers
into the lower, which part of the city was called the Citadel. He then
got the temple under his power, and cleansed the whole place, and walled
it round about, and made new vessels for sacred ministrations, and brought
them into the temple, because the former vessels had been profaned. He
also built another altar, and began to offer the sacrifices; and when the
city had already received its sacred constitution again, Antiochus died;
whose son Antiochus succeeded him in the kingdom, and in his hatred to
the Jews also.
[
41]
So this Antiochus got together fifty thousand footmen, and five thousand
horsemen, and fourscore elephants, and marched through
Judea into the mountainous
parts. He then took Bethsura, which was a small city; but at a place called
Bethzacharis, where the passage was narrow, Judas met him with his army.
However, before the forces joined battle, Judas's brother Eleazar, seeing
the very highest of the elephants adorned with a large tower, and with
military trappings of gold to guard him, and supposing that Antiochus himself
was upon him, he ran a great way before his own army, and cutting his way
through the enemy's troops, he got up to the elephant; yet could he not
reach him who seemed to be the king, by reason of his being so high; but
still he ran his weapon into the belly of the beast, and brought him down
upon himself, and was crushed to death, having done no more than attempted
great things, and showed that he preferred glory before life. Now he that
governed the elephant was but a private man; and had he proved to be Antiochus,
Eleazar had performed nothing more by this bold stroke than that it might
appear he chose to die, when he had the bare hope of thereby doing a glorious
action; nay, this disappointment proved an omen to his brother [Judas]
how the entire battle would end. It is true that the Jews fought it out
bravely for a long time, but the king's forces, being superior in number,
and having fortune on their side, obtained the victory. And when a great
many of his men were slain, Judas took the rest with him, and fled to the
toparchy of
Gophna. So Antiochus went to
Jerusalem, and staid there but
a few days, for he wanted provisions, and so he went his way. He left indeed
a garrison behind him, such as he thought sufficient to keep the place,
but drew the rest of his army off, to take their winter-quarters in
Syria.
[
47]
Now, after the king was departed, Judas was not idle; for as many
of his own nation came to him, so did he gather those that had escaped
out of the battle together, and gave battle again to Antiochus's generals
at a village called Adasa; and being too hard for his enemies in the battle,
and killing a great number of them, he was at last himself slain also.
Nor was it many days afterward that his brother John had a plot laid against
him by Antiochus's party, and was slain by them.