Antiochus Epiphanes

“ Antiochus invaded Greece in 192 B. C., and there the Romans defeated him both by land and sea, and compelled him to yield a large part of his dominions in Asia Minor. Much of the eastern territory had been lost before this time, as well as Phœnicia, Palestine, and Western Syria, conquered by Ptolemy Philopator, king of Egypt.
Antiochus Epiphanes (175-164 B. C.) oppressed the Jews to introduce the worship of the Greek divinities. Against him the brave Maccabees rose in rebellion. The Syrian kingdom ended in 65 B. C., conquered by the Romans under Pompey. ”

“ Antiochus Epiphanes, a descendant of Seleucus. He grew against the south, and the east, by his victories over the kings of Egypt and Armenia: and against the strength, that is, against Jerusalem and the people of God. ”

“ Antiochus seemed to have restored the Seleucid empire in the east, and the achievement brought him the title of “the Great King.” In 205/4 the infant Ptolemy V. Epiphanes succeeded to the Egyptian throne, and Antiochus concluded a secret pact with Philip of Macedonia for the partition of the Ptolemaic possessions. Once more Antiochus attacked Palestine, and by 199 he seems to have had possession of it. It was, however, recovered for Ptolemy by the Aetolian Scopas. ”

“ After the death of Ptolemy’s mother Cleopatra, his ministers, Eulaeus and Lenaeus, engaged in a war with Antiochus for the recovery of Coele-Syria and Phoenicia, which had been taken by Antiochus the Great, and which they alleged had been assigned as a dower to the late Cleopatra. Their war was singularly unsuccessful. Antiochus Epiphanes defeated their troops at Pelusium, took young Ptolemy Philometor captive, and advanced as far as Memphis. Thereupon Ptolemy Physcon assumed the royal title at Alexandria as Euergetes II., and sent envoys to Antiochus at Memphis. ”

“ The three kings whom Antiochus plucked up by the roots (cf. Dan 7:8, Dan 7:20,Dan 7:24) must be Heliodorus, the murderer of Philopator; Demetrius, who was a hostage in Rome, the son of Philopator, and the legitimate successor to the throne; and the son of Ptolemy Philometor, for whom his mother Cleopatra, the sister of Seleucus Philopator and of Antiochus Epiphanes, claimed the Syrian throne. But no one of these three reached the royal dignity, and none of them was dethroned or plucked up by the roots by Antiochus Epiphanes. Heliodorus, it is true, strove for the kingdom (Appian, Syriac. 45) ”

“ From the typical relation in which Antiochus, the O.T. enemy of God, stands to Antichrist, the N.T. enemy, is explained the connection of the end, the final salvation of the people of God, and the resurrection from the dead, with the destruction of this enemy, without any express mention being made of the fourth world-kingdom and of the last enemy arising out of it; from which the modern critics have drawn the erroneous conclusion, that the Maccabean pseudo-Daniel expected the setting up of the Messianic kingdom in glory along with the overthrow of Antiochus Epiphanes. ”

“ He made war against Antiochus Epiphanes king of Syria, to recover the provinces of Palestine and Cœlosyria, which were part of the Egyptian dominions, and after several successes he fell into the hands of his enemy, who detained him in confinement. During the captivity of Philometor, the Egyptians raised to the throne his younger brother Ptolemy Evergetes, or Physcon, also son of Epiphanes, but he was no sooner established in his power than Antiochus turned his arms against Egypt, drove the usurper ♦out, and restored Philometor to all his rights and privileges as king of Egypt. ”

“ But as for the first tendency (or purpose) , the chief matter is wholly wanting, viz., The profanation of the holy vessels of the temple by Antiochus on the occasion of a festival, which in this chapter forms the chief part of the wickedness for which Belshazzar brings upon himself the judgment of God. Of Antiochus Epiphanes it is only related that he plundered the temple at Jerusalem in order that he might meet his financial necessities, while on the other hand the carrying away by Nebuchadnezzar of the vessels belonging to the temple (Dan 1:2) is represented as a providence of God. ”

“ Damocritus, who lived perhaps in the first century B.C.E., as quoted by the late Byzantine compiler Suidas, [206] asserts that the Jews captured a stranger every seven years, and sacrificed him to their god; and Apion, in the first century C.E., relates the circumstantial story of the captured Greek who was found immured in the temple by Antiochus Epiphanes. ”

“ Antiochus the Illustrius... Epiphanes, the younger son of Antiochus the Great, who usurped the kingdom, to the prejudice of his nephew Demetrius, son of his elder brother Seleucus Philopater.-Ibid. Of the kingdom of the Greeks... Counting, not from the beginning of the reign of Alexander, but from the first year of Seleucus Nicator.
1:12. In those days there went out of Israel wicked men, and they persuaded many, saying: Let us go and make a covenant with the heathens that are round about us: for since we departed from them, many evils have befallen us. ”

“ The aged king wished to yield everything without a blow; but his two sons, Epiphanes and Callinicus, were not to be restrained. They took arms, and, at the head of such a force as they could hastily muster, met Paetus in the field, and fought a battle with him which lasted the whole day, and ended without advantage to either side. But the decision of Antiochus was not to be shaken; he refused to countenance his sons’ resistance, and, quitting Commagene, passed with his wife and daughters into the Roman province of Cilicia, where he took up his abode at Tarsus. ”

“ The fourth Beast was the empire which succeeded that of the Greeks, and this was the Roman. This beast was exceeding dreadful and terrible, and had great iron teeth, and devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with its feet; and such was the Roman empire. It was larger, stronger, and more formidable and lasting than any of the former. It conquered the kingdom of Macedon, with Illyricum and Epirus, in the eighth year of Antiochus Epiphanes, Anno Nabonass.. 580; and inherited that of Pergamus, Anno Nabonass. 615; and conquered that of Syria, Anno Nabonass. ”

“ In the reign of Antiochus the Great the Jews suffered greatly while he was at war with Ptolemy Philopater, and with his son, called Epiphanes. When Antiochus had beaten Ptolemy, he seized on Judea, but ultimately he made a league with Ptolemy, gave him his daughter Cleopatra to wife, and yielded up to him Celesyria, Samaria, Judea, and Phoenicia by way of dowry. Onias, son of Simon the Just, was then high-priest. He greatly provoked the king by neglecting to pay his taxes, so that Ptolemy threatened to settle his soldiers in Jerusalem to live on the citizens. ”

“ Epiphanes in manhood was chiefly remarkable as a passionate sportsman; he excelled in athletic exercises and the chase. Great cruelty and perfidy were displayed in the suppression of the native rebellion, and some accounts represent him as personally tyrannical.
The elder of his two sons, PTOLEMY VI. Philometor (181-14 5) , succeeded as an infant under the regency of his mother Cleopatra. Her death was followed by a rupture between the Ptolemaic and Seleucid courts, on the old question of Palestine. Antiochus IV. Epiphanes invaded Egypt (170) and captured Philometor. ”

“ And Concerning The Death Of Judas.
At the same time that Antiochus, who was called Epiphanes, had a quarrel with the sixth Ptolemy about his right to the whole country of Syria, a great sedition fell among the men of power in Judea, and they had a contention about obtaining the government; while each of those that were of dignity could not endure to be subject to their equals. However, Onias, one of the high priests, got the better, and cast the sons of Tobias out of the city; who fled to Antiochus, and besought him to make use of them for his leaders, and to make an expedition into Judea. ”

“ ANTIOCHUS, the name of thirteen kings of the Seleucid dynasty in Nearer Asia. The most famous are Antiochus III. the Great (223–187 B.C.) who sheltered Hannibal and waged war with Rome, and his son Antiochus IV. Epiphanes (176–164 B.C.) who tried to suppress Judaism by persecution (see Seleucid Dynasty) . ”

“ Continued warfare with Egypt. Phœnicia and Cœle-Syria regained by battle of Paneas in 198, but these territories are given back to Egypt when Ptolemy Epiphanes marries Cleopatra, daughter of Antiochus. 196. The Thracian Chersonesus taken from Macedonia. 192-189. War with the Romans, who demand restoration of the Thracian and Egyptian provinces. 190. Battle of Magnesia; great defeat of Antiochus by the Romans. 187. Antiochus killed by his subjects as he attempts to rob the temple of Elymais to pay the Romans. His son Seleucus (IV) Philopator succeeds. ”

“ The cowardly Antiochus it was who stabbed him as he sprang from his sleep, encumbered and disabled by his night-clothes. Not a Roman has escaped with his life.
Antiochus is proclaimed king, and the streets of the city have resounded with the shouts of this deluded people, crying, 'long live Antiochus!' He has been borne in tumult to the great portico of the temple of the Sun, where, with the ceremonies prescribed for the occasion, he has been crowned king of Palmyra and of the East. ”

“ So they are indifferent to the opinion which the Achaeans have of them, because they are aware that they are thoroughly known to them. It is for the king's representatives, and through them for the king himself, that he has uttered this bombast. If anyone did not know before what it was that led Antiochus to make common cause with the Aetolians, it came out clearly in their delegate's speech. By lying to one another and boasting of forces which neither of them possess they have filled each other with vain hopes. ”

“ For Antiochus, with his friends, came to the place as though he would marry her, and that he might receive great sums of money under the title of a dowry.
1:15. And when the priests of Nanea had set it forth, and he with a small company had entered into the compass of the temple, they shut the temple,
1:16. When Antiochus was come in: and opening a secret entrance of the temple, they cast stones and slew the leader, and them that were with him, and hewed them in pieces; and cutting off their heads, they threw them forth.
1:17. Blessed be God in all things, who hath delivered up the wicked. ”

“ What reward or honour then do we seem in your eyes to deserve, we who have never been your enemies, but always your friends? Not only in Asia have my father, my brothers and myself taken up arms on your behalf, but far from home in the Peloponnesus, in Boeotia, in Aetolia, in the wars with Philip and Antiochus and the Aetolians, on sea as well as on land. Someone will say, 'What, then, do you ask for?' As you insist, senators, upon my speaking freely, I must comply. ”

“ He was followed by Menippus, who asserted that the best thing for all the peoples of Greece and Asia would have been for Antiochus to have intervened whilst Philip's power was still unimpaired, everyone would then have kept what belonged to him, and everything would not have been completely at the mercy of Rome. "Even now," he continued, "if only you resolutely carry out the designs you have formed, he will be able with the help of the gods and the assistance of the Aetolians to restore the fortunes of Greece, drooping though they are, to their old place in the world. ”

“ Antiochus, the king of Antioch, (from whom the city takes its name,) had a daughter of such uncommon beauty, that when she came of marriageable years, she was sought after with the greatest eagerness. But on whom to bestow her was a source of much anxiety to the king; and, from frequently contemplating the exquisite loveliness of her face, the delicacy of her form, and the excellence of her disposition, he began to love her with more than a father's love. He burned with an unhallowed flame, and would have excited a simultaneous feeling in his daughter. ”

“ Whether, therefore, he returned it to us again, or whether Apion took it, and brought it into the temple again, that Antiochus might find it, and afford a handle for a second fable of Apion's, is uncertain. Apion also tells a false story, when he mentions an oath of ours, as if we "swore by God, the Maker of the heaven, and earth, and sea, to bear no good will to any foreigner, and particularly to none of the Greeks." Now this liar ought to have said directly that" we would bear no good-will to any foreigner, and particularly to none of the Egyptians." ”

“ Such were the arguments which Thoas used.
43 No characters are so prone to jealousy as those whose birth and fortune are not on a level with their intelligence, for they hate virtue and goodness in others. The plan of sending Hannibal to Africa, the one useful plan which had been thought out at the beginning of the war, was promptly set aside. Encouraged by the defection of Demetrias, Antiochus determined to postpone no longer his advance into Greece. ”

“ The historical truth of this report is confirmed by Polybius, who mentions (Fragm. xxxi. 11) that Antiochus, being in difficulty for want of money, sought to spoil the temple of Artemis and Elymaïs, and in consequence of the failure of his design he fell ill at Tabae in Persia, and there died. By these well-established facts the supposition of an invasion of Egypt by Antiochus in the eleventh, i.e., the last year of his reign, is excluded. ”

“ His kingdom on the contrary was weak, and tributary to the Romans, and he did not enlarge it. The horn was a King of fierce countenance, and destroyed wonderfully, and prospered and practised; that is, he prospered in his practises against the holy people: but Antiochus was frighted out of Egypt by a mere message of the Romans, and afterwards routed and baffled by the Jews. The horn was mighty by another's power, Antiochus acted by his own. The horn stood up against the Prince of the Host of heaven, the Prince of Princes ”