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THE FIVE BOOKS FROM MACKABEANS IN ENGLISH.
WITH NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS,
BY
HENRY COTTON, D.C.L.
ARCHDEACON OF CASHEL,
AND DECEASED STUDENT AT CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD
OXFORD, AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. MDCCCXXXII.
TO
THE PROVOST, FELLOWS AND SCHOLARS,
VAN TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN,
TO WHOSE VALUABLE LIBRARY
I HAD THE MOST GENEROUS ACCESS,
THE PRESENT PUBLICATION IS ENGRAVED,
IN TESTIMONY
OF RESPECT AND RESPECT.
CONTENTS.
Foreword ………. p. vii
Introduction…… xi
The Greek text of Eleazar’s prayer xxxix
Genealogy of the Maccabees xliii
‘ of the family of Herod xliv
Chronological Table xlv
Book 1 ………………….. 1
II ………………………….. 43
III ………………………… 147
IV ……………………….. 219
V ………………………… 277
Index………………….. 447
INTRODUCTION.
THE portion of Jewish history, which is comprised between the return from Babylon and the birth of Jesus Christ, commends itself to our consideration on a variety of grounds.
Restored to their liberty and home by Cyrus(Medo-Persia), and furnished, both by him and several of his successors, with liberal supplies of all things necessary for their purpose, the Jews commenced and brought to a happy conclusion, the building of their « Second House.” (B. C. 515.) Some few years afterwards, under the guidance of Nehemiah, they repaired the walls and private dwellings of Jerusalem ; and, both there and throughout the other cities of Judaea, once more established the name and semblance of a people, and employed themselves, as heretofore, in the ordinary occupations of civil life.
But their condition was not such as it had been in the former golden days of their prosperity: their numbers were diminished, their resources were impaired, their limits circumscribed, their authority restricted ; since now they were no longer governed by independent princes of their own, but were subjected to the uncertain and arbitrary control of governors appointed by the kings of Persia.
We thus see them already placed in a new position they are also entering on a new career of action ; as being now brought into immediate contact with other nations ; and about to bear their part in the fulfilment of those prophecies of Daniel, which speak of the rise and progress of the Grecian empire in Asia, and of the treatment which the religion and fortunes of the Jews should experience at the hands of the successors of Alexander.
Unable, by their numbers and position, to maintain their independence as a state, we find them falling alternately under the sway of Syria or of Egypt ; and suffering perpetual annoyance from the mutual quarrels which arose between these states, in addition to the positive persecutions, on religious grounds, which they under went from Ptolemy Philopator, (B. C. 217.) and from Antiochus Epiphanes.
One short bright space in their history succeeds, when resistance to religious tyranny procured for them civil freedom also : when under the leadership of the Asmonajan princes they obtained, not merely independence, but some portion of renown and splendour.
This light, however, was soon quenched through the bane of internal dissensions ; and by the growing influence of the Romans, who now began to appear on the Eastern stage, and to take an active part in the politics of Asia and Egypt, they were consigned to the hands and dominion of a half stranger in the person of Herod the Great ; who wielded a sceptre, which he had obtained through rivers of blood, really at the will and beck of a Roman commander, though nominally retaining the name and diadem of a sovereign ; because the Word of God had announced that “the sceptre ” should not depart from Judah,” till the Shiloh, the Messiah, should appear.
Mixed up as we have seen the Jews to have been during the above-named period, with the affairs, not only of Asia, but also of Greece and Rome, we might reasonably expect to find ample notices concerning them in the several Greek and Roman historians. To a certain extent this expectation has been realized : we still possess various and valuable information on Jewish matters, in the works of classic authors which are yet re and there is ground for believing that much more of the same stamp and value has been lost to us, through that common misfortune which has deprived these later ages of so large a portion of the literary treasures bequeathed by the learned of former days.
Polyhius, of Megalopolis in Arcadia, who flourished during the times of the Maccabees, and is known and valued for the extent and accuracy of his observations, had particular reasons for directing his attention to the Jewish affairs of his day inasmuch as he was not only acquainted with the general outline of their proceedings, but enjoyed the personal and close friendship of Demetrius the Second, whose escape from Rome he certainly was privy to, and perhaps had originally advised. Polybius left behind him. a history in forty books : of these, no more than five entire, with fragments of twelve others, have been preserved to the present time : but from these small remains we learn to estimate the extent of our loss : and, judging from that portion of Jewish history which we find in these fragments, we might have expected from his unmutilated works very considerable accessions of important information. Diodorus Siculus lived during the reigns of Hyrcanus and Herod : he wrote a history of Roman affairs in forty books ; of which only fifteen are now remaining, with extracts from some few of the rest. We collect that Diodorus had given particular attention to Jewish matters: in his 34th book he speaks of the bad character which that nation bore amongst foreigners, and relates several of the acts of Antiochus Epiphanes. Again, in a fragment of the fortieth book, there is evidence that he had written a narrative of Pompey’s expedition against Jerusalem ; as he begins with the words (‘H/Ae«f t\ fj.iX\ovrei miaypa^eiv tov irpoi ‘lov’iaiovs iroXeis-ov, &c. 🙂 but all which now remains of this, whatever it might have been, is merely the introductory part, relating to the early history and habits of the Jews, such as they were believed by Diodorus to be. For the preservation of even this short fragment we are indebted to the most learned and diligent Photius, patriarch of Constantinople.
Another historian, who was contemporary with Herod the Great, is Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Ancient Greek historian): but, as the plan of his work did not embrace the period of time with which these books are concerned, we are not to expect from him any thing either of corroborative or corrective information.
Strabo, the eminent Greek geographer, likewise, flourished before the death of Herod. He is said to have written some historical books; but these unfortunately are lost. This author is very frequently quoted by Josephus; and there is good ground for supposing that if his works had survived, they would have contained much valuable matter connected with this period of Jewish history.
Livy, who was alive during the time of Herod and Augustus, is well known to have related everything belonging to Roman history with considerable minuteness of detail : but a very large portion of his great work has perished through lapse of time, and especially that part which contained the transactions belonging to the period of the Maccabees : had these survived, there is little doubt that, from the close connexion at this time existing between the affairs of Syria and Rome, ample notice and information upon various points of this our history would have been found in the pages of Livy.
Besides these writers, most of whom were living during the times of which the five books of Maccabees treat; and all of whom wrote their accounts or histories before Josephus published his great work on Jewish history, and therefore could not have been either biassed or informed at second-hand by him : —we find others, of high name and great celebrity, who have taken more or less pains in transmitting to posterity some memorials of the Jews and their affairs.
Tacitus, who lived at a time when the Jewish name and nation was either odious or utterly despised at Rome, after the final overthrow of Jerusalem, —has left to us, in the fifth book of his Histories, a short account of the origin and customs of the Jews ; defective indeed and distorted, as rather through prejudice than ignorance. He relates the expedition of Pompey against Jerusalem; and probably in the latter part of that book, which unhappily has perished, had given a fuller detail of the part which the Romans took in the concerns of Judaea, from the commencement of Augustus’ reign till the destruction of the Holy City by Titus.
Plutarch, who flourished about thirty years after the destruction of Jerusalem, has incidental notices of the Jews and their afiairs.
Appian, about twenty or twenty-five years later, composed, among other works, a History of Syria : in which he relates the transactions of Antiochus the Great and his successors on the Syrian throne ; likewise the deeds of Pompey in Judaea, and his putting an end to the dynasty of the Seleucidae.(The Seleucid Empire was a major Hellenistic(Greek) state founded by Seleucus I Nicator in 312 BCE, spanning from the Mediterranean to the borders of India at its height, and lasting until its conquest by Rome in 63 BCE.)
Athenceus is said to have written a history of Syria: but not a vestige of it is now remaining. He flourished at the close of the second century after Christ. Besides the above named, Dion Cassius and some other authors are known to have touched more or less on points of Jewish history; but from none of them have we obtained, or at least do we now possess, anything like a continuous or comprehensive work upon the subject.
It is manifest that all these united, interesting as they certainly are, and affording valuable confirmation of accounts derived from another quarter, are very far from supplying us with anything like a complete history of the times, or furnishing that accurate or continuous information concerning the Jews and their transactions during this period, which we should greatly have desired to possess.
We turn therefore, not more naturally than ne cessarily, to the Jewish historians themselves ; and enquire what amount of information we can gather thence, checked, and (if need be) corrected, by the concurrent testimonies of the writers of other nations I say checked and corrected: for it is remembered that for all this portion of Jewish history we lack the infallible direction of inspired guides. The historical books of the Holy Scripture reach no lower in point of time than to Nehemiah (B. C. 434.) : and from the Prophets who lived after the captivity, Haggai, Zachariah, and relation ; Malachi, we gather little or nothing of historical and even Malachi, the last of these, wrote at a period nearly four hundred years antecedent to the birth of Christ.
We are dependant therefore upon such accounts as are transmitted to us by Josephus, who lived and wrote subsequently to the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus ; and by certain other writers, whose relations, less known than his, or, at least, less studied, though some of them are prior in point of time, and perhaps superior in accuracy on many points, are here collected and exhibited in attempted order, as separate yet not useless links of a much to be desired chain.
Although the entire five treatises bear the same name, that of ” Books of Maccabees” it is to be borne in mind that this connection between them is more nominal than real. Composed, perhaps at different times, by different authors, in different languages, on different subjects, they may derive importance and usefulness from juxta-position and a common name : but at the same time it is necessary that the reader should be furnished with a separate account of each ; more especially, since I have felt it right to invert the order of some of them which are more familiar to common readers, with the view of making a chronological arrangement subservient to the purposes of general information.
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