Jason and Menelaus

He fought many battles and captured many strongholds. He killed the kings of the earth. He went all the way to the ends of the earth and took plunder from a great many nations. The earth fell quiet before him. He became very great, and his heart grew proud. He gathered a very strong army. He ruled over countries, nations and the lands of princes, and they paid him tribute.

After all this he fell sick, and he knew that he was going to die. He called in his honored servants, who had grown up with him since they were young, and while he was still alive, he divided his kingdom among them. Alexander had reigned twelve years when he died.

Then his servants ruled, each one over his own part of the kingdom. After his death they all put crowns on their heads, and so did their sons after them for many years. And they brought more and more harm on the earth.

Out of them grew a sinful root: Antiochus Epiphanes, the son of King Antiochus, who had been held as a hostage at Rome. He became king in the one hundred thirty-seventh year of the kingdom of the Greeks.

Now this same Simon, who had betrayed his own country by telling about the money, began to spread lies about Onias. He said it was Onias who had stirred up Heliodorus, and that Onias was the real cause of these troubles. He dared to call him a plotter against the state, when Onias was the one who did the city good, who looked after his fellow countrymen, and who was devoted to the laws.

Simon’s hatred grew so great that one of his trusted men even committed murders. Onias saw how dangerous the quarrel had become. He saw too that Apollonius son of Menestheus, the governor of Coelesyria and Phoenicia, was making Simon’s hatred worse.

So Onias went to the king. He did not go to accuse his fellow citizens. He went for the good of all the people, both as a whole and one by one. He saw that without the king’s help, the state could never have peace again, and that Simon would not stop his madness.

On top of that, he offered one hundred fifty more if the king would let him set up a gymnasium, with a company of young men to be trained in it, and register Jerusalem’s people as citizens of Antioch.

In those days, men who broke the law came out of Israel and won many people over. “Let’s go and make a covenant with the Gentiles around us,” they said. “Ever since we separated from them, many troubles have come on us.” The idea seemed good to them.

Some of the people went eagerly to the king, and he gave them permission to keep the laws of the Gentiles. The king agreed to Jason’s offer, and as soon as Jason had taken office, he switched his own people over to the Greek way of life.

The Jews had been granted special favors by royal order, through the efforts of John the father of Eupolemus. This was the John who went to the Romans to make friendship and an alliance with them. Jason set those favors aside. He tried to do away with the ways of life the law allowed, and he brought in new customs that the law forbade.

So they built a gymnasium in Jerusalem, following the laws of the Gentiles. Jason eagerly set it up right below the citadel, the city’s fortress, and he had the noblest of the young men wear the Greek hat.

They made themselves uncircumcised and turned their backs on the holy covenant. They joined themselves to the Gentiles and gave themselves over to doing wrong.

Greek ways were carried to the extreme, and a foreign religion spread, because Jason was so unholy. He was an ungodly man, not a real high priest. The priests no longer cared about serving at the altar. They looked down on the sanctuary and neglected the sacrifices. As soon as the call came for the discus-throwing, they hurried off to the wrestling arena to enjoy what was provided there against the law.

They thought nothing of the honors of their ancestors, and they valued the glory of the Greeks above everything. That is why great disaster overtook them. They had eagerly followed certain men’s ways and wanted to be like them in everything. Now those same men became their enemies and punished them. It is no small thing to disrespect God’s laws, as later events will make clear.

The man who sent it meant the money for the sacrifice to Hercules. But because of the way things stood, it went to build triremes, warships with three rows of oars.

Now Apollonius son of Menestheus was sent into Egypt for the crowning of Philometor as king. When Antiochus learned that Philometor had turned hostile toward his government, he took steps to keep his own kingdom safe. So he went to Joppa, and from there he traveled on to Jerusalem.

Jason and the city gave him a magnificent welcome, and he was brought in with torches and shouting. Then he led his army down into Phoenicia.

But Menelaus was presented to the king with praise, and the display of his authority brought him honor. He got the high priesthood for himself by offering three hundred talents of silver more than Jason.

He came back with the king’s orders, but he brought nothing fit for a high priest, only a cruel tyrant’s temper and a savage animal’s rage.

So Jason, who had pushed his own brother out, was pushed out by another man. He was driven away and had to flee into the country of the Ammonites.

Menelaus held the office, but he didn’t keep up the payments he had promised the king. Sostratus, the governor of the citadel, demanded them, because it was his job to collect the king’s money. So the king called both of them to come before him.

Menelaus left his own brother Lysimachus to stand in for him as high priest, and Sostratus left Crates, who was in charge of the Cyprians.

So the king hurried off to settle matters, leaving Andronicus, a man of high rank, as his deputy.

Menelaus thought he had found his chance. He gave Andronicus some gold vessels that he had stolen from the temple. He had already sold others in Tyre and the cities nearby.

Onias had gone away to a sanctuary at Daphne, near Antioch. When he found out for certain what Menelaus had done, he spoke sharply against him.

So Menelaus took Andronicus aside and asked him to kill Onias. Andronicus was persuaded to deceive him. He went to Onias and was welcomed as a friend. He shook Onias’s right hand and swore oaths. Though Onias was suspicious, Andronicus persuaded him to come out of the sanctuary. Then, with no regard for justice, he killed him at once.

Because of this, not only the Jews but many people of other nations too were angry and upset at the unjust murder of the man.

When the king came back from the regions of Cilicia, the Jews of the city went to him with a complaint against Andronicus, and the Greeks joined them in hating the wickedness of it. They insisted that Onias had been wrongly killed.

Antiochus was deeply sorry. He was moved to pity and wept, because of the self-controlled, orderly life the dead man had lived.

Burning with anger, he at once stripped off Andronicus’s purple robe and tore off the clothes underneath. He led him around through the whole city to the very place where Andronicus had done that terrible wrong to Onias, and there he put the murderer to death. So the Lord paid him back with the punishment he deserved.

The crowds were rising up against him, full of anger. So Lysimachus armed about three thousand men and began the attack with unjust violence. Their leader was Hauran, a man well along in years, and just as far along in foolishness.

But when the people saw Lysimachus attacking, some grabbed stones, others logs, and some scooped up handfuls of the ashes lying nearby. They hurled it all, in wild confusion, at Lysimachus and those with him.

They wounded many of them, killed some, and made the rest run away. And beside the treasury they killed the very man who had committed those crimes against holy things.

Charges were brought against Menelaus over all this. When the king reached Tyre, the three men the senate had sent argued the case before him.

Menelaus saw that he was already beaten. So he promised Ptolemy son of Dorymenes a great deal of money to win the king over. Ptolemy took the king aside into a covered walk, as if to get some fresh air, and got him to change his mind.

So the king cleared Menelaus of the charges, though Menelaus was the cause of all the harm. But he sentenced those poor men to death. Even if they had pleaded their case before Scythians, they would have been let go without blame.

So the men who had spoken up for the city, for the families of Israel and for the holy vessels, soon suffered that unjust penalty.

Because of this, some people of Tyre, who also hated the wickedness, paid for a splendid burial for them.

But Menelaus stayed in office, thanks to the greedy dealings of the men in power. He grew more and more wicked, and he became a great plotter against his own fellow citizens.

He went into Egypt with a huge army, with chariots, elephants, horsemen and a great fleet. He made war on Ptolemy king of Egypt. Ptolemy was put to shame before him and ran away, and many fell and died of their wounds. They captured the strong cities in the land of Egypt, and Antiochus carried off the plunder of Egypt.

2 Maccabees says that about this time Antiochus invaded Egypt a second time.

All over the city, for almost forty days, horsemen were seen racing through the middle of the sky. They wore robes woven with gold and carried spears, and they were lined up in troops for battle. Swords were drawn. Companies of horsemen stood in their ranks. Two armies charged and chased each other. Shields shook, lances crowded together, weapons were hurled, golden ornaments flashed, and armor of every kind was put on.

So everyone prayed that what they had seen meant something good.

Then a false rumor spread that Antiochus was dead. Jason took at least a thousand men and made a sudden attack on the city. The men on the wall were driven back, and at last the city was nearly taken. Menelaus took shelter in the citadel.

But Jason slaughtered his own fellow citizens without mercy. He didn’t stop to think that victory over your own kin is the greatest misfortune of all. He thought he was setting up monuments of victory over enemies, not over his own countrymen.

He did not win control of the government. All his plotting brought him was shame, and he fled again as a fugitive into the country of the Ammonites.

So at last he came to a miserable end. He was held prisoner at the court of Aretas, the prince of the Arabians. He fled from city to city, chased by everyone. He was hated as a rebel against the laws and loathed as the executioner of his own country and his fellow citizens. He was cast ashore in Egypt.

He had driven many people out of their own country into exile, and he died in exile himself. He had crossed the sea to the Lacedaemonians, hoping to find shelter there, since they and the Jews were close kin.

He had thrown out a great many people to lie unburied, and now he had no one to mourn him. There was no funeral for him at all, and no place in his ancestors’ tomb.

2 Maccabees says that when the king heard what had been done, he thought Judea was in revolt. So he set out from Egypt in a rage, and he took the city by force.

He ordered his soldiers to cut down without mercy anyone they came across, and to kill those who went into their houses. Young and old were killed. Boys, women and children were destroyed, and young girls and babies were put to death.

Within three days, eighty thousand were lost. Forty thousand were killed in the fighting, and at least as many were sold as slaves.

Not content with this, Antiochus walked arrogantly into the sanctuary, the most holy temple in all the earth, with Menelaus as his guide. Menelaus had proved himself a traitor to the laws and to his own country. Antiochus took the golden altar, the lampstand for the light, and all its utensils.

He took the table for the show bread, the cups for the drink offerings, the bowls, the gold censers, the veil and the crowns, and he peeled off all the gold decoration on the front of the temple. He took the silver, the gold and the precious vessels, and the hidden treasures he found. With his polluted hands he took the holy vessels, and with his unholy hands he dragged down the gifts other kings had given to add to the glory and honor of the place.

Antiochus was puffed up with pride. He did not see that the Sovereign Lord had been angry for a short time because of the sins of the people who lived in the city. That was why the Lord’s eye had turned away from the place. If the people had not already been bound up in many sins, Antiochus would have been whipped and turned back from his bold deed the moment he stepped forward. That is what happened to Heliodorus, whom King Seleucus sent to look over the treasury.

But the Lord didn’t choose the nation because of the place. He chose the place because of the nation. So the place too shared in the nation’s troubles, and afterward it shared in the good things that came to the nation. When the Almighty was angry, the place was abandoned. But once the great Sovereign was at peace with the nation again, it was restored with all its glory.

When Antiochus had taken all these things, he went away to his own land. He killed a great many people, and he spoke very arrogantly. 2 Maccabees says he carried one thousand eight hundred talents out of the temple and hurried away to Antioch. In his arrogance he thought he could sail on dry land and walk on the sea, because his heart was so full of pride.

Great mourning came on Israel, everywhere its people lived. The rulers and elders groaned. Girls and young men grew weak, and the women’s beauty changed. Every bridegroom took up a song of grief, and the bride sitting in her wedding room mourned. The land shook for the people who lived in it, and all of Jacob’s people were clothed in shame.

Out of hatred for the Jews, who had been made citizens, Apollonius, “that lord of pollutions,” was sent with an army of twenty-two thousand men. His orders were to kill all who were full grown, and to sell the women and the boys as slaves.

He came to Jerusalem pretending to be a man of peace, and he waited until the holy day of the Sabbath. When he found the Jews resting from their work, he ordered his men to parade in full armor.

He cut down with the sword everyone who came out to watch. Then he ran into the city with his armed men and killed great numbers of people.

But Judas, who was also called Maccabaeus, withdrew with about nine others. He and his companions kept themselves alive in the mountains, the way wild animals do. They lived on whatever grew wild, so that they would have no share in anything unclean.