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Persecution by Antiochus Epiphanes

From their descendants came a godless offshoot, Antiochus Epiphanes, son of King Antiochus, who had been held hostage in Rome. He became king in the one hundred and thirty-seventh year of the Greek era (in 175 B.C.).

It was then that some rebels emerged from Israel, who succeeded in winning over many people. They said: “Let us renew contact with the people around us, for we have endured many misfortunes since we separated from them.”

This proposal was well-received,

and some eagerly went to the king. The king authorized them to adopt the customs of the pagan nations.

With his permission, they constructed a gymnasium in Jerusalem in the style of the pagan nations.

And as they wanted to be like the pagans in everything, they made artificial foreskins for themselves and abandoned the Holy Covenant, sinning as they pleased.

Antiochus issued a decree throughout his entire kingdom.

All the people within his empire were required to abandon their traditional customs and become one unified people.

All the pagan nations obeyed and respected the king’s decree, and even in Israel, many accepted the imposed cult. They offered sacrifices to idols and no longer honored the Sabbath.

On the fifteenth day of the month of Kislev, in one hundred and forty-five (in B.C.), Antiochus erected the “abominable idol of the invaders” on the temple’s altar. Pagan altars were built throughout the whole land of Judea;

incense was offered at the doors of their houses and in the squares.

There, wicked men tore up the books of the law they found and burned them.

They killed anyone caught in possession of the Book of the Covenant and who followed the law’s precepts, as the royal decree had ordered.

But many Israelites remained firm and determined not to eat unclean food despite all this.

They preferred to die rather than to make themselves unclean with those foods (prohibited by the law) that violated the Holy Covenant.