1. Polybius, Histories, 5.34.10 (2nd cent. BCE - 2nd cent. BCE)
| 5.34.10. But this new king, neglecting to control all these matters owing to his shameful amours and senseless and constant drunkenness, found, as was to be expected, in a very short time both his life and his throne threatened by more than one conspiracy |
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2. Septuagint, 1 Maccabees, 2.44, 5.3, 5.65, 7.6, 10.14, 15.21 (2nd cent. BCE - 2nd cent. BCE)
| 2.44. They organized an army, and struck down sinners in their anger and lawless men in their wrath; the survivors fled to the Gentiles for safety. 5.3. But Judas made war on the sons of Esau in Idumea, at Akrabattene, because they kept lying in wait for Israel. He dealt them a heavy blow and humbled them and despoiled them. 5.65. Then Judas and his brothers went forth and fought the sons of Esau in the land to the south. He struck Hebron and its villages and tore down its strongholds and burned its towers round about. 7.6. And they brought to the king this accusation against the people: "Judas and his brothers have destroyed all your friends, and have driven us out of our land. 10.14. Only in Beth-zur did some remain who had forsaken the law and the commandments, for it served as a place of refuge. 15.21. Therefore if any pestilent men have fled to you from their country, hand them over to Simon the high priest, that he may punish them according to their law. |
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3. Septuagint, 2 Maccabees, 4.42, 6.8, 8.8-8.9, 8.12, 8.34, 12.32, 14.6 (2nd cent. BCE - 2nd cent. BCE)
| 4.42. As a result, they wounded many of them, and killed some, and put them all to flight; and the temple robber himself they killed close by the treasury.' 6.8. At the suggestion of Ptolemy a decree was issued to the neighboring Greek cities, that they should adopt the same policy toward the Jews and make them partake of the sacrifices,' 8.8. When Philip saw that the man was gaining ground little by little, and that he was pushing ahead with more frequent successes, he wrote to Ptolemy, the governor of Coelesyria and Phoenicia, for aid to the king's government.' 8.9. And Ptolemy promptly appointed Nicanor the son of Patroclus, one of the king's chief friends, and sent him, in command of no fewer than twenty thousand Gentiles of all nations, to wipe out the whole race of Judea. He associated with him Gorgias, a general and a man of experience in military service.' 8.12. Word came to Judas concerning Nicanor's invasion; and when he told his companions of the arrival of the army,' 8.34. The thrice-accursed Nicanor, who had brought the thousand merchants to buy the Jews,' 12.32. After the feast called Pentecost, they hastened against Gorgias, the governor of Idumea.' 14.6. Those of the Jews who are called Hasideans, whose leader is Judas Maccabeus, are keeping up war and stirring up sedition, and will not let the kingdom attain tranquillity.' |
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4. Septuagint, 3 Maccabees, 1.2-1.3, 2.27-2.30, 3.12-3.22, 3.24-3.29, 4.16, 5.1-5.3, 5.5, 5.15-5.22, 5.36, 6.33, 7.1-7.9 (2nd cent. BCE - 2nd cent. BCE)
| 1.2. But a certain Theodotus, determined to carry out the plot he had devised, took with him the best of the Ptolemaic arms that had been previously issued to him, and crossed over by night to the tent of Ptolemy, intending single-handed to kill him and thereby end the war. 1.2. Mothers and nurses abandoned even newborn children here and there, some in houses and some in the streets, and without a backward look they crowded together at the most high temple. 1.3. But Dositheus, known as the son of Drimylus, a Jew by birth who later changed his religion and apostatized from the ancestral traditions, had led the king away and arranged that a certain insignificant man should sleep in the tent; and so it turned out that this man incurred the vengeance meant for the king. 2.27. He proposed to inflict public disgrace upon the Jewish community, and he set up a stone on the tower in the courtyard with this inscription: 2.28. None of those who do not sacrifice shall enter their sanctuaries, and all Jews shall be subjected to a registration involving poll tax and to the status of slaves. Those who object to this are to be taken by force and put to death; 2.29. those who are registered are also to be branded on their bodies by fire with the ivy-leaf symbol of Dionysus, and they shall also be reduced to their former limited status. 3.12. King Ptolemy Philopator to his generals and soldiers in Egypt and all its districts, greetings and good health. 3.13. I myself and our government are faring well. 3.14. When our expedition took place in Asia, as you yourselves know, it was brought to conclusion, according to plan, by the gods' deliberate alliance with us in battle 3.15. and we considered that we should not rule the nations inhabiting Coele-Syria and Phoenicia by the power of the spear but should cherish them with clemency and great benevolence, gladly treating them well. 3.16. And when we had granted very great revenues to the temples in the cities, we came on to Jerusalem also, and went up to honor the temple of those wicked people, who never cease from their folly. 3.17. They accepted our presence by word, but insincerely by deed, because when we proposed to enter their inner temple and honor it with magnificent and most beautiful offerings 3.18. they were carried away by their traditional conceit, and excluded us from entering; but they were spared the exercise of our power because of the benevolence which we have toward all. 3.19. By maintaining their manifest ill-will toward us, they become the only people among all nations who hold their heads high in defiance of kings and their own benefactors, and are unwilling to regard any action as sincere. 3.21. Among other things, we made known to all our amnesty toward their compatriots here, both because of their alliance with us and the myriad affairs liberally entrusted to them from the beginning; and we ventured to make a change, by deciding both to deem them worthy of Alexandrian citizenship and to make them participants in our regular religious rites. 3.22. But in their innate malice they took this in a contrary spirit, and disdained what is good. Since they incline constantly to evil 3.24. Therefore, fully convinced by these indications that they are ill-disposed toward us in every way, we have taken precautions lest, if a sudden disorder should later arise against us, we should have these impious people behind our backs as traitors and barbarous enemies. 3.25. Therefore we have given orders that, as soon as this letter shall arrive, you are to send to us those who live among you, together with their wives and children, with insulting and harsh treatment, and bound securely with iron fetters, to suffer the sure and shameful death that befits enemies. 3.26. For when these all have been punished, we are sure that for the remaining time the government will be established for ourselves in good order and in the best state. 3.27. But whoever shelters any of the Jews, old people or children or even infants, will be tortured to death with the most hateful torments, together with his family. 3.28. Any one willing to give information will receive the property of the one who incurs the punishment, and also two thousand drachmas from the royal treasury, and will be awarded his freedom. 3.29. Every place detected sheltering a Jew is to be made unapproachable and burned with fire, and shall become useless for all time to any mortal creature. 4.16. The king was greatly and continually filled with joy, organizing feasts in honor of all his idols, with a mind alienated from truth and with a profane mouth, praising speechless things that are not able even to communicate or to come to one's help, and uttering improper words against the supreme God. 5.1. Then the king, completely inflexible, was filled with overpowering anger and wrath; so he summoned Hermon, keeper of the elephants 5.1. Hermon, however, when he had drugged the pitiless elephants until they had been filled with a great abundance of wine and satiated with frankincense, presented himself at the courtyard early in the morning to report to the king about these preparations. 5.2. and ordered him on the following day to drug all the elephants -- five hundred in number -- with large handfuls of frankincense and plenty of unmixed wine, and to drive them in, maddened by the lavish abundance of liquor, so that the Jews might meet their doom. 5.2. the king, possessed by a savagery worse than that of Phalaris, said that the Jews were benefited by today's sleep, "but," he added, "tomorrow without delay prepare the elephants in the same way for the destruction of the lawless Jews! 5.3. When he had given these orders he returned to his feasting, together with those of his friends and of the army who were especially hostile toward the Jews. 5.3. But at these words he was filled with an overpowering wrath, because by the providence of God his whole mind had been deranged in regard to these matters; and with a threatening look he said 5.5. The servants in charge of the Jews went out in the evening and bound the hands of the wretched people and arranged for their continued custody through the night, convinced that the whole nation would experience its final destruction. 5.5. Not only this, but when they considered the help which they had received before from heaven they prostrated themselves with one accord on the ground, removing the babies from their breasts 5.15. And when he had with difficulty roused him, he pointed out that the hour of the banquet was already slipping by, and he gave him an account of the situation. 5.16. The king, after considering this, returned to his drinking, and ordered those present for the banquet to recline opposite him. 5.17. When this was done he urged them to give themselves over to revelry and to make the present portion of the banquet joyful by celebrating all the more. 5.18. After the party had been going on for some time, the king summoned Hermon and with sharp threats demanded to know why the Jews had been allowed to remain alive through the present day. 5.19. But when he, with the corroboration of his friends, pointed out that while it was still night he had carried out completely the order given him 5.21. When the king had spoken, all those present readily and joyfully with one accord gave their approval, and each departed to his own home. 5.22. But they did not so much employ the duration of the night in sleep as in devising all sorts of insults for those they thought to be doomed. 5.36. The king, however, reconvened the party in the same manner and urged the guests to return to their celebrating. 6.33. Likewise also the king, after convening a great banquet to celebrate these events, gave thanks to heaven unceasingly and lavishly for the unexpected rescue which he had experienced. 7.1. King Ptolemy Philopator to the generals in Egypt and all in authority in his government, greetings and good health. 7.1. Upon receiving this letter the Jews did not immediately hurry to make their departure, but they requested of the king that at their own hands those of the Jewish nation who had willfully transgressed against the holy God and the law of God should receive the punishment they deserved. 7.2. We ourselves and our children are faring well, the great God guiding our affairs according to our desire. 7.2. Then, after inscribing them as holy on a pillar and dedicating a place of prayer at the site of the festival, they departed unharmed, free, and overjoyed, since at the king's command they had been brought safely by land and sea and river each to his own place. 7.3. Certain of our friends, frequently urging us with malicious intent, persuaded us to gather together the Jews of the kingdom in a body and to punish them with barbarous penalties as traitors; 7.4. for they declared that our government would never be firmly established until this was accomplished, because of the ill-will which these people had toward all nations. 7.5. They also led them out with harsh treatment as slaves, or rather as traitors, and, girding themselves with a cruelty more savage than that of Scythian custom, they tried without any inquiry or examination to put them to death. 7.6. But we very severely threatened them for these acts, and in accordance with the clemency which we have toward all men we barely spared their lives. Since we have come to realize that the God of heaven surely defends the Jews, always taking their part as a father does for his children 7.7. and since we have taken into account the friendly and firm goodwill which they had toward us and our ancestors, we justly have acquitted them of every charge of whatever kind. 7.8. We also have ordered each and every one to return to his own home, with no one in any place doing them harm at all or reproaching them for the irrational things that have happened. 7.9. For you should know that if we devise any evil against them or cause them any grief at all, we always shall have not man but the Ruler over every power, the Most High God, in everything and inescapably as an antagonist to avenge such acts. Farewell. |
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5. Josephus Flavius, Jewish Antiquities, 12.387, 13.62-13.71 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
| 12.387. Now as to Onias, the son of the high priest, who, as we before informed you, was left a child when his father died, when he saw that the king had slain his uncle Menelaus, and given the high priesthood to Alcimus, who was not of the high priest stock, but was induced by Lysias to translate that dignity from his family to another house, he fled to Ptolemy, king of Egypt; 13.62. 1. But then the son of Onias the high priest, who was of the same name with his father, and who fled to king Ptolemy, who was called Philometor, lived now at Alexandria, as we have said already. When this Onias saw that Judea was oppressed by the Macedonians and their kings 13.63. out of a desire to purchase to himself a memorial and eternal fame he resolved to send to king Ptolemy and queen Cleopatra, to ask leave of them that he might build a temple in Egypt like to that at Jerusalem, and might ordain Levites and priests out of their own stock. 13.64. The chief reason why he was desirous so to do, was, that he relied upon the prophet Isaiah, who lived above six hundred years before, and foretold that there certainly was to be a temple built to Almighty God in Egypt by a man that was a Jew. Onias was elevated with this prediction, and wrote the following epistle to Ptolemy and Cleopatra: 13.65. “Having done many and great things for you in the affairs of the war, by the assistance of God, and that in Celesyria and Phoenicia, I came at length with the Jews to Leontopolis, and to other places of your nation 13.66. where I found that the greatest part of your people had temples in an improper manner, and that on this account they bare ill-will one against another, which happens to the Egyptians by reason of the multitude of their temples, and the difference of opinions about divine worship. Now I found a very fit place in a castle that hath its name from the country Diana; this place is full of materials of several sorts, and replenished with sacred animals; 13.67. I desire therefore that you will grant me leave to purge this holy place, which belongs to no master, and is fallen down, and to build there a temple to Almighty God, after the pattern of that in Jerusalem, and of the same dimensions, that may be for the benefit of thyself, and thy wife and children, that those Jews which dwell in Egypt may have a place whither they may come and meet together in mutual harmony one with another, and he subservient to thy advantages; 13.68. for the prophet Isaiah foretold that, ‘there should be an altar in Egypt to the Lord God;’” and many other such things did he prophesy relating to that place. 13.69. 2. And this was what Onias wrote to king Ptolemy. Now any one may observe his piety, and that of his sister and wife Cleopatra, by that epistle which they wrote in answer to it; for they laid the blame and the transgression of the law upon the head of Onias. And this was their reply: 13.71. But since thou sayest that Isaiah the prophet foretold this long ago, we give thee leave to do it, if it may be done according to your law, and so that we may not appear to have at all offended God herein.” |
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6. Josephus Flavius, Jewish War, 7.423-7.426 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
| 7.423. Onias, the son of Simon, one of the Jewish high priests, fled from Antiochus the king of Syria, when he made war with the Jews, and came to Alexandria; and as Ptolemy received him very kindly, on account of his hatred to Antiochus, he assured him, that if he would comply with his proposal, he would bring all the Jews to his assistance; 7.424. and when the king agreed to do it so far as he was able, he desired him to give him leave to build a temple somewhere in Egypt, and to worship God according to the customs of his own country; 7.425. for that the Jews would then be so much readier to fight against Antiochus who had laid waste the temple at Jerusalem, and that they would then come to him with greater goodwill; and that, by granting them liberty of conscience, very many of them would come over to him. 7.426. 3. So Ptolemy complied with his proposals, and gave him a place one hundred and eighty furlongs distant from Memphis. That Nomos was called the Nomos of Heliopoli |
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7. Josephus Flavius, Against Apion, 2.112-2.114 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
| 2.112. 10. Nay, this miracle of piety derides us farther, and adds the following pretended facts to his former fable; for he says that this man related how, “while the Jews were once in a long war with the Idumeans, there came a man out of one of the cities of the Idumeans, who there had worshipped Apollo. This man, whose name is said to have been Zabidus, came to the Jews, and promised that he would deliver Apollo, the god of Dora into their hands, and that he would come to our temple, if they would all come up with him 2.113. and bring the whole multitude of the Jews with them; that Zabidus made him a certain wooden instrument, and put it round about him, and set three rows of lamps therein, and walked after such a manner, that he appeared to those that stood a great way off him, to be a kind of star walking upon the earth: 2.114. that the Jews were terribly frightened at so surprising an appearance, and stood very quiet at a distance; and that Zabidus, while they continued so very quiet, went into the holy house, and carried off that golden head of an ass (for so facetiously does he write), and then went his way back again to Dora in great haste.” |
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8. Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation To The Greeks, 4.54.2 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
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