2 Maccabees

Judas’ First Actions

Meanwhile, Judas, also called Maccabeus, and his followers secretly entered the villages to call their relatives and gather those who remained faithful to Judaism; eventually, they all assembled—about six thousand men.

They prayed to the Lord to turn his countenance on his people oppressed on all sides, to take pity on the Sanctuary profaned by the impious,

to have compassion on the city—destroyed and on the point of being leveled—to listen to the cry of the blood reaching out to him;

and they asked that he not forget the unjust killing of innocent children and show his indignation against those who had insulted his Name.

The Lord’s anger turned into compassion, and as soon as Maccabeus had organized his troops, they became unstoppable against the pagans. Judas usually used the night for his military campaigns.

He attacked them unexpectedly, set cities and villages on fire, captured key positions, and scattered many of the enemies.

And people everywhere talked about his valor.

When Philip saw that Judas was making progress, little by little, and his victories increased daily, he wrote to Ptolemy, the military commissioner of Coelesyria and Phoenicia, to come and help him under the king’s service.

Ptolemy immediately appointed Nicanor, son of Patroclus, one of the king’s closest allies, and sent him with about twenty thousand men from all nations, with orders to wipe out all the Jews. He also assigned Gorgias, an experienced military general, to his side.

Nicanor planned to raise two thousand talents by selling Jewish slaves to pay the tribute owed to the Romans by the king.

So he extended an invitation to all the coastal cities to buy slaves for a talent, without any regard for the punishment from the Almighty that might come upon him.

When Judas learned that Nicanor had arrived with a large army, he informed his men.

The cowardly and those lacking confidence in divine justice fled.

Still, others sold everything they owned and prayed to God to deliver from the wicked Nicanor those who had already been sold even before the battle began.

They asked that if the Lord would not save them because of their own deeds, at least He would do so out of regard for the Covenant they made with their ancestors and for the great, revered Name with which He had blessed his people.

Maccabeus gathered and reorganized his troops, numbering about six thousand, and urged them not to fear the enemy but to fight courageously against their unjust oppressors despite their large numbers.

He reminded them of how those men had desecrated the Holy Place, slaughtered the residents of Jerusalem, and abolished their traditional institutions.

He told them: “They come with confidence in their weapons and boldness, but we trust in the almighty God, who can wipe out in one stroke all who invade our land and even the whole world.”

He recounted to them all the times when God had come to help their ancestors, especially when he wiped out one hundred and eighty-five thousand men under Sennacherib.

He also reminded them of what had happened in Babylonia during the battle against the Galatians. On that day, eight thousand Jews fought alongside four thousand Macedonians, and as the Macedonians were under heavy pressure, their Jewish allies alone killed twenty thousand of the enemy’s troops with heaven’s help and seized a great amount of loot.

Judas encouraged them with these words and motivated them to die for their laws and country; then, he divided the army into four groups.

He assigned his brothers Simon, Joseph, and Jonathan to each lead a division of fifteen hundred men.

He ordered the Sacred Books to be read and gave them their watchword, “Help from God.” Then, he led the first battalion and attacked Nicanor.

With the help of the Almighty, they slaughtered nine thousand enemies, wounded and crippled many, and forced the rest to flee.

They took the money from those who had come to buy the Jews and chased them for quite a while. But it was almost evening,

so they had to stop because it was the vigil of the Sabbath. That’s why they ended their pursuit of the enemies.

They collected their enemies’ weapons and loot and celebrated the Sabbath that day with praise and thanksgiving to God, who had just saved them and begun to show them His mercy.

After the Sabbath, they distributed part of the loot to those who had been tortured, the widows, and the orphans, and the rest among themselves and their men.

After doing this, they prayed publicly to the Merciful Lord, asking to be fully reconciled with His servants.

Then, during a confrontation with the army of Timotheus and Bacchides, they killed over twenty thousand men and took control of the fortified cities. They divided the abundant plunder into equal shares among themselves, including those who had been tortured, the orphans, the widows, and the elderly.

They carefully stored the weapons taken from the enemies in secure places and brought the rest of the loot to Jerusalem.

They killed the chief guard of Timotheus, an extremely wicked man who had committed many evil deeds against the Jews.

Then, as they celebrated their victory in Jerusalem, they burned alive those responsible for burning the temple gates, including Callisthenes, who had taken refuge in a small house. Thus, these men paid the price deserved for their impiety.

The thrice-accursed Nicanor, who had brought thousands of merchants to buy the Jews,

found himself humbled with God’s help by those same men he had despised before. Having discarded his splendid robe, he fled across the country as a fugitive and reached Antioch, relieved that he had not perished with his army.

He who had intended to pay the tribute owed to the Romans by selling the Jews now affirmed that the Jews were invincible and invulnerable and that Someone fought for them, provided they were obeying the laws prescribed by him.