THE WARS OF THE JEWS
OR
THE HISTORY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM
Book I: Chapter 1
CONTAINING THE INTERVAL OF ONE HUNDRED AND
SIXTY-SEVEN YEARS. FROM THE TAKING OF JERUSALEM BY
ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES, TO THE DEATH OF HEROD THE GREAT
CHAPTER 1 HOW THE CITY JERUSALEM WAS TAKEN, AND THE
TEMPLE PILLAGED [BY ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES]. AS ALSO
CONCERNING THE ACTIONS OF THE MACCABEES, MATTHIAS AND
JUDAS; AND CONCERNING THE DEATH OF JUDAS.
1. 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 1
concerning which we shall speak more in its proper
place hereafter.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. Now Judas, supposing that Antiochus would not
lie still, gathered anarmy 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.
5. 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.
6. 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
1276 days afterward that his brother John had a
plot laid against him by Antiochus’s party, and was
slain by them.
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