2 Maccabees

Conquest of Jerusalem and Desecration of the Temple

By this time, Antiochus was preparing a second expedition against Egypt.

For nearly forty days, horsemen dressed in gold, appear through the city, galloping through the air,

troops with swords drawn and formed in squadrons, cavalry squadrons in order of battle, attacks, and charges from this side and that, movements of shields, many spears, arrows, missiles, the glitter of golden outfits and armor of all kinds.

Everyone prayed that these apparitions would announce something good about to happen.

As a false rumor spread that Antiochus had died, Jason gathered about ten thousand men and launched a surprise attack on the city. The troops on the walls defended the city, but once they were taken, the entire city fell into Jason’s hands, while Menelaus took refuge in the Citadel.

Jason ruthlessly slaughtered his fellow citizens without realizing that his victory against his nation was actually his greatest defeat. He seemed to think he was defeating enemies, but in reality, those enemies were his own people.

But he didn’t stay in power for long, and after gaining nothing but shame for himself, he was forced to flee once again to the land of Ammon.

Finally, he met a miserable end. Accused before Aretas, the king of the Arabs, fleeing from city to city, pursued by everyone, scorned as a renegade from the law and hated as the executioner of his country and fellow citizens, he was banished to Egypt.

And he, who had exiled so many from their own land, died in exile: he traveled as far as Lacedaemonia hoping to find protection there because of the kinship between that people and ours.

He, who had denied so many burial places, died without anyone to mourn him, no funeral rites, nor a place in his ancestors’ tomb.

When news of these events reached the king, he assumed that all of Judea had rebelled. He became furious and, leaving Egypt, went to seize Jerusalem by force.

He ordered his soldiers to kill mercilessly everyone they encountered and to behead all those who sought refuge in their homes.

Young and old perished; men, women, and children were slaughtered, and infants and virgins were slain.

Within only three days, there were eighty thousand victims—forty thousand perished in the slaughter, and as many were sold as slaves.

Not satisfied with this, Antiochus daringly entered the holiest temple in the world, guided by Menelaus, the traitor to both law and country.

With his unclean hands, Antiochus seized the sacred vessels and, with sacrilegious hands, took what other kings had given as gifts for the glory and honor of the temple.

But in acting insolently, Antiochus did not realize that the Lord had let him profane the temple to punish the city’s inhabitants because their sins had offended him.

For, had the city not been sinful, Antiochus would have been flogged the moment he entered, as Heliodorus had been, who was sent by Seleucus to rob the treasury. And he would have also repented of his audacity.

But God had not chosen the people for the temple, but the temple for the nation’s sake.

Therefore, the temple also shared in the nation’s misfortune and, afterward, its restoration. It had been abandoned during God’s wrath; it was again restored to its glory when the Most High Lord was appeased.

Antiochus took eighteen hundred talents, which he had stolen from the temple, and hurriedly went back to Antioch, so proud that he thought himself capable of sailing by land and walking on the sea.

At his departure, he left ministers to oppress our race. In Jerusalem, he appointed Philip, of Phrygian ancestry and a more barbarous character than he had previously appointed him;

and he left Andronicus in Gerizim. Besides, there was Menelaus, who surpassed them in his hatred for his fellow citizens. This man had, indeed, a deep hatred for Jewish compatriots.

Antiochus also sent Apollonius with an army of twenty-two thousand soldiers with orders to behead all the grown men and sell the women and children.

Arriving in Jerusalem, under the pretext of peace, he waited until the holy day of the Sabbath. Then, he took the Jews by surprise as they rested. He ordered his men to conduct a military parade,

and he killed all those who came out to see the show. Then, running through the streets, the soldiers killed many people.

Judas Maccabeus withdrew into the desert with about nine others willing to live like the wild beasts. They only ate clean vegetables there because they did not want to eat unclean meat.