The In-Dept Study of the Bible
Maccabees 04
1 The previously mentioned Simon, who
had given information about the money
against his country, slandered Onias,
saying that it was he who had incited
Heliodorus and had been the real cause of
these evils.
2 He dared to call him a conspirator
against the state who was actually the
benefactor of the city, the guardian of his
fellow countrymen, and a zealot for the
laws.
3 When his hatred grew so great that
even murders were perpetrated through
one of Simon’s approved agents,
4 Onias, seeing the danger of the contention,
and that †Apollonius the son of Menestheus,
the governor of Coelesyria and Phoenicia,
was increasing Simon’s malice,
5 appealed to the king, not to be an accuser of
his fellow-citizens, but looking to the good of
all the‡ people, both public and private;
6 for he saw that without the king’s
involvement it was impossible for the state
to obtain peace any more, and that Simon
would not cease from his madness.
7 When Seleucus was deceased, and Antiochus,
who was called Epiphanes, succeeded to
the kingdom, Jason the brother of Onias
supplanted his brother in the high
priesthood,
8 having promised to the king at an audience
three hundred sixty talents of silver,
and out of another fund eighty talents.
9 In addition to this, he undertook to
assign one hundred fifty more, if it might be
allowed him §through the king’s authority
to set him up a gymnasium and a body of
youths to be trained in it, and to register
the inhabitants of Jerusalem as citizens of
Antioch.
10 When the king had assented, and
Jason had taken possession of the office, he
immediately shifted those of his own race
to the Greek way of life.
11 Setting aside the royal ordinances of
special favor to the Jews, granted by the
means of John the father of Eupolemus,
who went on the mission to the Romans
to establish friendship and alliance, and
seeking to overthrow the lawful ways of
living, he brought in new customs
forbidden by the law.
12 For he eagerly established a gymnasium
under the citadel itself, and caused
the noblest of the young men to wear the
Greek hat.
13 Thus there was an extreme of hellenization,
and an advance of a foreign religion, by reason
of the exceeding profaneness of Jason, who
was an ungodly man and not a high priest;
14 so that the priests had no more any
zealfor the services ofthe altar; but despising
the sanctuary and neglecting the sacrifices,
they hastened to enjoy that which
was unlawfully provided in the wrestling
arena, after the summons to the discusthrowing.
15 They despised the honors of their
fathers, and valued the prestige of the
Greeks best of all.
16 For this reason, severe calamity overtook them.
The men whose ways of living they earnestly
followed, and to whom they desired to be
made like in all things, these
became their enemies and punished them.
17 For it is not a light thing to show
irreverence to God’s laws, but later events will
make this clear.
18 Now when certain games that came
every fifth year were kept at Tyre, and the
king was present,
19 the vile Jason sent sacred envoys,† as
being Antiochians of Jerusalem, bearing
three hundred drachmas of silver to the
sacrifice of Hercules, which even the bearers
there of thought not right to use for
any sacrifice, because it was not fit, but to
spend it for another purpose.
20 Although the intended purpose of the
sender this money was for the sacrifice
of Hercules, yet on account of ‡present
circumstances it went to the construction
of trireme warships.
21 Now when Apollonius the son of
Menestheus was sent into Egypt for the
§ enthronement of Philometor as king,
Antiochus, learning that Philometor had
shown himself hostile toward the government,
took precautions for the security of
his realm. Therefore, going to Joppa, he
travelled on to Jerusalem.
22 Being magnificently received by Jason and the city, he was brought in with
torches and shouting. Then he led his
army down into Phoenicia.
23 Now after a space ofthree years, Jason
sent Menelaus, the previously mentioned
Simon’s brother, to carry the money to
the king, and to make reports concerning
some necessary matters.
24 But he being commended to the king,
and having been glorified by the display of
his authority, secured the high priesthood
forhimself, outbidding Jasonby threehundred talents of silver.
25 After receiving the royal mandates, he
returned bringing nothing worthy of the
high priesthood, but having the passion
of a cruel tyrant and the rage of a savage
animal.
26 So Jason, who had supplanted his own
brother, was supplanted by another and
driven as a fugitive into the country of the
Ammonites,
27 Menelaus had possession of the office;
but of the money that had been promised
to the king nothing was regularly paid,
even though Sostratus the governor of the
citadel demanded it—
28 for his job was the gathering of the
revenues—so they were both called by the
king to his presence.
29 Menelaus left his own brother Lysimachus
for his† deputy in the high priesthood;
and Sostratus left Crates, who was
over the Cyprians.
30 Now while this was the state of things,
it came to pass that the people of Tarsus
and Mallus revolted because they were
to be given as a present to Antiochis, the
king’s concubine.
31 The king therefore quickly came to
settle matters, leaving for his ‡deputy
Andronicus, a man of high rank.
32 Then Menelaus, supposing that he had
gotten a favorable opportunity, presented
to Andronicus certain vessels of gold
belonging to the temple, which he had stolen.
He had already sold others into Tyre and
the neighboring cities.
33 When Onias had sure knowledge of
this, he sharply reproved him, having
withdrawn himself into a sanctuary at
Daphne, that lies by Antioch.
34 Therefore Menelaus, taking Andronicus aside,
asked him to kill Onias. Coming to Onias,
and being persuaded to use treachery, and
being received as a friend,
Andronicus gave him his right hand with
oaths and, though he was suspicious,
persuaded him to come out of the sanctuary.
Then, with no regard for justice,
he immediately put him to death.
35 For this reason not only Jews, but
many also of the other nations, had
indignation and displeasure at the
unjust murder of the man.
36 And when the king had come back
from the places in Cilicia, the Jews who
were in the city appealed to him against
Andronicus (the Greeks also joining with
them in hatred of the wickedness), urging
that Onias had been wrongfully slain.
37 Antiochus therefore was heartily
sorry, and was moved to pity, and wept,
because of the sober and well ordered life
of him who was dead.
38 Being inflamed with anger, he immediately
stripped off Andronicus’s purple
robe, and tore off his under garments, and
when he had led him round through the
whole city to that very place where he
had committed the outrage against Onias,
there he put the murderer out of the way,
the Lord rendering to him the punishment
he had deserved.
39 Now when many sacrileges had been
committed in the city by Lysimachus with
the consent of Menelaus, and when the
report of them had spread abroad outside,
the people gathered themselves together
against Lysimachus, after many vessels of
gold had already been stolen.
40 When the multitudes were rising
against him and were filled with anger,
Lysimachus armed about three thousand
men, and with unrighteous violence began
the attack under the leadership of Hauran,
a man far gone in years and no less also in
folly.
41 But when they perceived the assault of
Lysimachus, some caught up stones, others
logs of wood, and some took handfuls
of the ashes that lay near, and they flung
them all in wild confusion at Lysimachus
and those who were with him.
42 As a result, they wounded many of
them, they killed some, and they forced
the rest of them to flee, but the author of
the sacrilege himself they killed beside the treasury.
43 But about these matters, there was an
accusation laid against Menelaus.
44 When the king had come to Tyre, the
three men who were sent by the senate
pleaded the cause before him.
45 But Menelaus, seeing himself now
defeated, promised much money to Ptolemy
the son of Dorymenes, that he might win
over the king.
46 Therefore Ptolemy taking the king
aside into a cloister, as if to get some fresh
air, convinced him to change his mind.
47 He who was the cause of all the
evil, Menelaus, he discharged from the
accusations; but these hapless men, who,
if they had pleaded even before Scythians,
would have been discharged uncondemned,
them he sentenced to death.
48 Those who were spokesmen for the
city and the families of Israel and the
holy vessels soon suffered that unrighteous penalty.
49 Therefore even certain Tyrians,
moved with hatred of the wickedness,
provided magnificently for their burial.
50 But Menelaus, through the covetous
dealings of those who were in power,
remained still in his office, growing in
wickedness, established as a great
conspirator against his fellow-citizens.