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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
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 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.
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 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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