Amalasuntha

“ In the summer of 535, eighteen months later, Justinian began the great war against the Goths, the opportunity for which was offered him by the murder of Amalasuntha, and the result of which was to be the re-establishment of the empire in Italy. ”

“ AMALASUNTHA or Amalasuentha, queen of the Ostrogoths (d. 535) , daughter of Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, was married in 515 to Eutharic, an Ostrogoth of the old Amal line, who had previously been living in Spain. Her husband died, apparently in the early years of her marriage, leaving her with two children, Athalaric and Matasuentha. On the death of her father in 526, she succeeded him, acting as regent for her son, but being herself deeply imbued with the old Roman culture, she gave to that son’s education a more refined and literary turn than suited the ideas of her Gothic subjects. ”

“ Among the many persons whom he made to serve his ends without admitting them to his confidence was Galla, the wife of a noble whom Amalasuntha had employed in her secret communications with Byzantium, and who was now one of the intimates of Bessas. A light woman, living as she pleased because of her husband's indifference, Galla knew and cared nothing about affairs of state, and on that account was the more useful to Marcian. She believed him in love with her, and he encouraged the belief; flattering her with pretence at timidity, as though he would fain have spoken but durst not. ”

“ Thus the emperor confirms all dispositions made by Amalasuntha, Athalaric, and Theodahad, as well as all his own acts—and these would include Theodoric's—and those of Theodora. But everything done by "the most wicked tyrant Totila" is null and void, "for we will not allow these law-abiding days of ours to take any account of what was done by him in the time of his tyranny." [1] Totila had indeed most cruelly attacked the great landed proprietors whom he suspected of too great an attachment for Constantinople; he had attacked them in their persons and in their wealth. ”

“ By his influence the Goths were kept in subjection to the new rule, notwithstanding the Roman proclivities of Amalasuntha as displayed in the education of the young prince. The threatened danger of an invasion by Justinian was likewise averted by the ready aid of his purse and pen (Procop. B. G. i. 3) . ”

“ Here, too, he learned a certain liberality in religious matters; for it was Cassiodorus who, in one of the rescripts given from the Gothic court, wrote those memorable words: 'Religious faith we have no power to impose, seeing that no man can be made to believe against his will.' Upon the murder of Amalasuntha, when the base Theodahad ruled alone, and ruin lay before the Gothic monarchy, Probus, despairing of Italy, following the example of numerous Roman nobles, migrated to Byzantium. ”

“ It is too—too uneventful. As heaven must be. But everybody is celestially kind. . .and Venturino has learnt that there are certain things my American relations will not tolerate. . ." Such was Amalasuntha's version of her visits to New York, when she recounted them in the drawing-rooms of Rome, Naples or St. ”

“ Gibbon, Decl. and Fall, c. 39) ; but the temper of Theodoric's declining years must have disappointed the hopes of Cassiodorus, and in 524 he resolved to divest himself of his honours, and to seek shelter in his Calabrian retreat from the storm which proved fatal to his co-senators, Boëthius and Symmachus. After the death of Theodoric, 525, Cassiodorus again became conspicuous as the trusted adviser of his daughter Amalasuntha, widow of Eutaric, who acted as regent for her son Athalaric (Var. ix. 25) . ”

“ Amulon was angry with Alma because he was subject to King Laman himself. In his anger, Amulon exercised authority over Alma's people and put taskmasters over them. Alma's people became so afflicted that they cried mightily to God.
Then Amulon ordered them to stop their cries. He put guards over them with orders to kill anyone found calling upon God. So Alma and his people stopped raising their voices to the Lord their God, but they still poured their hearts out to Him, and God knew the thoughts of their hearts. ”

“ Chapter 24
1 And it came to pass that the Amalekites and the Amulonites and the Lamanites who were in the land of Amulon, and also in the land of Helam, and who were in the land of Jerusalem, and in fine, in all the land round about, who had not been converted and had not taken upon them the name of Anti-Nephi-Lehi, were stirred up by the Amalekites and by the Amulonites to anger against their brethren.
2 And their hatred became exceedingly sore against them, even insomuch that they began to rebel against their king, insomuch that they would not that he should be their king ”

“ That accordingly God said to him, that "because the Amalekites did the Hebrews a great deal of mischief while they were in the wilderness, and when, upon their coming out of Egypt, they were making their way to that country which is now their own, I enjoin thee to punish the Amalekites, by making war upon them; and when thou hast subdued them, to leave none of them alive, but to pursue them through every age, and to slay them, beginning with the women and the infants, and to require this as a punishment to be inflicted upon them for the mischief they did to our forefathers ”

“ The Amalekite of the Old Testament is the Bedâwi of to-day. Now, as ever, he is the scourge of his more settled neighbours, whose fields he harries and whose families he murders. He lives by robbery and theft; too idle to work himself, he plunders those who do. A strong government forces him to hide himself in the depth of the wilderness; when the countries that skirt the desert fall into decay he emerges from his retreat like a swarm of flies. The ancient Oriental world saw in Amalek "the firstborn of nations;" ”

“ The Lord hath sworn, that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation. And four hundred years after: Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. ”

“ By this appointment Amulon and his associates became the overseers of the people of Alma, and right brutally did they use their authority in oppressing the people of God, until the day that the Lord delivered them. Amulon and his brethren were also made teachers and educators of the Lamanites by king Laman. These ex-priests instructed the people in the learning of the Nephites, but they taught them nothing concerning the Lord or the law of Moses. ”

“ The main power needed to fight Amalek and to erase his name and memory from the world, is through Shabbat, which is the name of the Holy One, Blessed be He. For the main war of Amalek in every generation is against the name of Hashem, which is the name of the True Tzaddik, for the name of Hashem is joined with that of the True Tzaddik. This Tzaddik is the glory and beauty and splendor of the whole world. He is the true grace of the world. He is the aspect of the simple foundation, the river that flows out of Eden, from which are drawn all four elements which are the basis of all the worlds. ”

“ His successor was a child of ten years, his grandson, whose mother exercised the regency. Amalsuentha, the queen-regent, was a woman of highly cultivated mind, and she offended her subjects by too marked a Romanization of her ideas. Her son died in his eighteenth year, and she associated with herself on the throne the next heir to it, a worthless nephew of Theodoric, who was able, in a few weeks, to strip all her power from her and consign her to a distant prison, where she was soon put to death (A. D. 535) . ”

“ This injunction, we are of the opinion, was afterwards removed, and the foreshadowed command given, as it is evident from the later history of the Nephites that in a better era of their national life polygamy was sanctioned by the law and practiced among them, and that, indeed, by the men most favored of God. As an example, we will cite the prophet Amulek, the devoted friend and zealous fellow-laborer of the younger Alma; the only man in all the vast [Pg 239] city of Ammonihah to whom an angel was sent, and in whose behalf mighty miracles were wrought. ”

“ Untamed and untamable, his hand was against every man, and every man's hand against him.
Before Babylonian culture had been brought to the West, Amalek already existed. He was older than the oldest of the civilised kingdoms of the earth. But civilisation had raised a barrier against him which he was ever on the watch to break through. He never lost the opportunity of raiding the inhabitants [pg 97] of the cultivated lands, and escaping again into the desert with his booty before he could be overtaken and punished. The desert between Palestine and Egypt was his chief camping-ground. ”

“ The northern races have the one much reduced name of Malfrid, from Amalafrida, of peace.
The ladies have certainly been the chief owners of Amal, as a commencement; but it has had a brilliant part to play in the form of Amalrich, Almerich, or Emmerich, on the German side; Almerigo in Spain; Amalric, or Amaury, in France; Almerick in England. Amaury was an Angevin king of Jerusalem; and our own Sir 331Almerick St. Lawrence was brother-in-arms to Sir John de Courcy, and founded the House of Howth in Ireland. The House of Lusignan, Melusina’s descendants, called it Aymar ”

“ With jeers, with mouthings and derisive gestures, they called upon the prophets to rescue their dying converts. Amulek's noble heart was pained beyond endurance; he besought Alma to exercise the power of God that was in them, and to save the victims from the consuming flames. But Alma replied, “The Spirit constraineth me that I must not stretch forth mine hand, for behold the Lord receiveth them up unto Himself in glory; and he doth suffer that the people may do this thing, according to the hardness of their hearts, that the judgments which he shall exercise upon them in his wrath may be just ”

“ Upon entering the Holy Land, the Jewish people were charged with three mitzvot: to kill off the seed of Amalek, to build a Holy Temple for themselves, and to appoint a king.
Killing off the seed of Amalek is the aspect of Yehoshua, the lower point. This is because blotting out Amalek is essentially dependent upon Yehoshua, as is written (Exodus 17:9) , " [Moshe said to Yehoshua, 'Pick some men for us, and] go out and battle against Amalek,' " and as is explained in the Zohar (II, 65b) . ”

“ I. Amalek's attempt: They came out, and fought with Israel, v. 8. The Amalekites were the posterity of Esau, who hated Jacob because of the birthright and blessing, and this was an effort of the hereditary enmity, a malice that ran in the blood, and perhaps was now exasperated by the working of the promise towards an accomplishment. Consider this, 1. As Israel's affliction. They had been quarrelling with Moses (v. 2) , and now God sends Amalekites to quarrel with them; wars abroad are the just punishment of strifes and discontents at home. 2. As Amalek's sin; so it is reckoned, Deut. ”

“ Asmode'us is one of his lieutenants. Shakespeare twice refers to him, in 1 Henry IV. act ii. sc. 4, and in The Merry Wives of Windsor, act ii. sc. 2.
Amal'ahta, son of Erill'yab the deposed queen of the Hoamen (2 syl.) , an Indian tribe settled on the south of the Missouri. He is described as a brutal savage, wily, deceitful, and cruel. Amalahta wished to marry the princess Goer'vyl, Madoc's sister, and even seized her by force, but was killed in his flight.—Southey, Madoc, ii. 16 (1805) .
Amalthae'a, the sibyl who offered to sell to Tarquin nine books of prophetic oracles. ”

“ Pal. ii. 552) . - In the case of two of the wives of Esau, who bore only one son each, the tribes were founded not by the sons, but by the grandsons; but in that of Aholibamah the three sons were the founders. Among the sons of Eliphaz we find Amalek, whose mother was Timna, the concubine of Eliphaz. He was the ancestor of the Amalekites, who attacked the Israelites at Horeb as they came out of Egypt under Moses (Exo 17:8.) , and not merely of a mixed tribe of Amalekites and Edomites, belonging to the supposed aboriginal Amalekite nation. ”

“ There lay the foe, there lay his guards, all overcome with resistless fatigue. To draw his javelin, thrust it into the king's heart and then flee, was but the work of a moment, and so adroitly did he fulfil his purpose that Amalickiah died without a struggle or a cry, and it was not until the morning that his guards discovered that the hosts of Laman were without a head. ”

“ Pharaoh and Amalek represent two different powers or influences. Pharaoh represents the hindrance [231] to Israel's deliverance from Egypt: Amalek represents the hindrance to their walk with God through the wilderness. Pharaoh used the things of Egypt to keep Israel from serving the Lord; he therefore prefigures Satan, who uses "this present evil world" against the people of God: Amalek, on the other hand, stands before us as the type of the flesh. ”

“ Out of every city in which there is a remnant of Edom, it shall be destroyed. שׁריד is equivalent to אדום שׁארית (Amo 9:12) . The explanation, “destroy the remnant out of the city, namely, out of the holy city of Jerusalem” (Ewald and Baur) , is forced, and cannot be sustained from the parallelism.
Verse 20Verse 20
The second saying in this prophecy relates to the Amalekites. Balaam sees them, not with the eyes of his body, but in a state of ecstasy, like the star out of Jacob. “Beginning of the heathen is Amalek, and its end is destruction.” ”