Second Book of Maccabees 4

¹ The Simon mentioned above as the informer against the funds and his own country began to slander Onias, insinuating that it was the high priest who had treated Heliodorus so harshly and had himself contrived these startling events.

² Simon now had the effrontery to name this benefactor of the city, this protector of his compatriots, this zealot for the laws, as an enemy of the public good.

³ This hostility reached such proportions that murders were actually committed by some of Simon’s agents,

⁴ and at this point Onias, recognising how mischievous this rivalry was, and aware that Apollonius son of Menestheus, military commissioner for Coele-Syria and Phoenicia, was encouraging Simon in his malice,

⁵ went to see the king, not to play the accuser of his fellow citizens, but having the public and private welfare of the entire people at heart.

⁶ He saw that without some intervention by the king an orderly administration would no longer be possible, nor would Simon be forced to put a stop to his folly.

⁷ When Seleucus had departed this life and Antiochus styled Epiphanes had succeeded to the kingdom, Jason, brother of Onias[*a], usurped the high-priesthood by underhand methods;

⁸ he approached the king with a promise of three hundred and sixty talents of silver, with eighty talents to come from some other source of revenue.

⁹ He further committed himself to guarantee another hundred and fifty if he was allowed to use his authority to establish a gymnasium and a youth centre, and to enrol men in Jerusalem as Antiochists.

¹⁰ When the king gave his assent, Jason set about introducing his fellow countrymen to the Greek way of life as soon as he was in power.

¹¹ He suppressed the existing royal concessions to the Jews, granted at the instance of John, father of that Eupolemus who was later to be sent on the embassy of friendship and alliance with the Romans, and, overthrowing the lawful institutions, introduced new usages contrary to the Law.

¹² He went so far as to plant a gymnasium at the very foot of the Citadel, and to fit out the noblest of his cadets in the petasos.[*b]

¹³ Godless wretch that he was and no true high priest, Jason set no bounds to his impiety; indeed the hellenising process reached such a pitch

¹⁴ that the priests ceased to show any interest in the services of the altar; scorning the Temple and neglecting the sacrifices, they would hurry to take part in the unlawful exercises on the training ground as soon as the signal was given for the discus.

¹⁵ They disdained all that their ancestors had esteemed, and set the highest value on hellenic honours.

¹⁶ But all this brought its own retribution; the very people whose way of life they envied, whom they sought to resemble in everything, proved to be their enemies and executioners.

¹⁷ It is no small thing to violate the divine laws, as the period that followed will demonstrate.

¹⁸ On the occasion of the quinquennial games at Tyre in the presence of the king,

¹⁹ the vile Jason sent some Antiochists from Jerusalem as official spectators; these brought with them three hundred silver drachmae for the sacrifice to Hercules. But even those who brought the money thought it should not be spent on the sacrifice-this would not be right-and decided to reserve it for some other item of expenditure;

²⁰ and so what the sender had intended for the sacrifice to Hercules was in fact applied, at the suggestion of those who brought it, to the construction of triremes.

²¹ Apollonius son of Menestheus had been sent to Egypt to attend the enthronement of King Philometor. Learning that the king had become hostile to his policies, Antiochus began to think of his own safety; and so he left Joppa and moved to Jerusalem.

²² He was given a magnificent welcome by Jason and the city, and was received with torches and acclamations; following this, he withdrew his army to Phoenicia.

²³ When three years had passed, Jason sent Menelaus, brother of the Simon mentioned above, to convey the money to the king and get his decisions on various essential matters made effective.

²⁴ But Menelaus, on being presented to the king, flattered him by his own appearance of authority, and so secured the high-priesthood for himself, outbidding Jason by three hundred talents of silver.

²⁵ He returned with the royal mandate, bringing nothing worthy of the high-priesthood and supported only by the fury of a cruel tyrant and the rage of a savage beast.

²⁶ Thus Jason, who had supplanted his own brother, was in turn supplanted by a third, and obliged to take refuge in Ammonite territory.

²⁷ As for Menelaus, he retained his high office, but he defaulted altogether on the sums promised to the king,

²⁸ although Sostratus, the commandant of the Citadel, whose business it was to collect the revenue, kept demanding payment. The pair of them in consequence were summoned before the king,

²⁹ Menelaus leaving his brother Lysimachus as deputy high priest, while Sostratus left Crates, the commander of the Cypriots, to act for him.

³⁰ While all this was going on, it happened that the people of Tarsus and Mallus revolted, because their towns had been given as a present to Antiochis, the king’s concubine.

³¹ The king therefore hurried off to settle the affair, leaving Andronicus, one of his dignitaries, to act as his deputy.

³² Thinking he had found a favourable opportunity, Menelaus abstracted a number of golden vessels from the Temple and presented them to Andronicus, and managed to sell others to Tyre and the surrounding cities.

³³ On receiving clear evidence to this effect, Onias retired to a place of sanctuary at Daphne near Antioch and then taxed him with it.

³⁴ Thereupon Menelaus, taking Andronicus aside, urged him to murder Onias. Andronicus sought out Onias and, after deceitfully reassuring him by offering him his right hand on oath, succeeded in persuading him, in spite of his lingering suspicions, to leave the sanctuary; whereupon he immediately put him to death, in defiance of all justice.

³⁵ The result was that not only the Jews but many of the other nations were appalled and indignant at this impious murder.

³⁶ On the kings return from the region of Cilicia the Jews of the capital, and those Greeks who shared their hatred of the crime, appealed to him about the insensate murder of Onias.

³⁷ Antiochus was profoundly grieved and filled with pity, and he wept for the prudence and great moderation of the dead man.

³⁸ His indignation was roused, and he immediately stripped Andronicus of the purple, tore his garments off him, and, parading him through the length of the city, rid the world of the assassin on the very spot where he had laid impious hands on Onias, the Lord dealing out to him the punishment he deserved.

³⁹ Now Lysimachus, with the connivance of Menelaus, had committed many sacrilegious thefts in the city, and when the facts had become widely known, the populace rose against Lysimachus, who had already disposed of many pieces of gold plate.

⁴⁰ The infuriated mob was becoming menacing, and Lysimachus armed nearly three thousand men and took aggressive action; the troops were led by a certain Auranus, a man advanced in years and no less in folly.

⁴¹ Recognising this act of aggression as the work of Lysimachus, some snatched up stones, others cudgels, while others scooped up handfuls of ashes lying at hand, and all hurled everything indiscriminately at Lysimachus’ men,

⁴² to such effect that they wounded many of them, even killing a few, and routed them all; the Temple robber himself they killed outside the treasury.

⁴³ As a result of this, legal proceedings were taken against Menelaus.

⁴⁴ When the King came down to Tyre, the three men sent by the elders maintained the justice of their case in his presence.

⁴⁵ Menelaus, seeing he was already defeated, promised a substantial sum to Ptolemy son of Dorymenes if he would influence the king in his favour.

⁴⁶ Ptolemy then took the king aside into a colonnade for some fresh air, and persuaded him to change his mind;

⁴⁷ the king actually dismissed the charges against Menelaus, the cause of all this evil, while he condemned to death the other poor wretches who, had they pleaded before even Scythians, would have been let off scot-free.

⁴⁸ No time was lost in carrying out this unjust punishment on those who had championed the cause of the city, the rural communities and the sacred vessels.

⁴⁹ Some Tyrians even were so outraged so by the crime that they provided sumptuously for their funeral,

⁵⁰ while as a result of the greed of those in high places Menelaus retained his high office, growing in wickedness and establishing himself as the chief enemy of his fellow citizens.