2 Maccabees 3–4: Some Power of God in That Place": Heliodorus, and the High Priests Who Bought the Office

When the holy city was inhabited with unbroken peace and the laws were kept very well because of the godliness of Onias the high priest and his hatred of wickedness, it came to pass that even the kings themselves honored the place and glorified the temple with the noblest presents, so that even King Seleucus of Asia bore all the costs belonging to the services of the sacrifices out of his own revenues. But a man named Simon of the tribe of Benjamin, having been made guardian of the temple, disagreed with the high priest about the ruling of the market in the city. When he couldn’t overcome Onias, he went to Apollonius of Tarsus, who at that time was governor of Coelesyria and Phoenicia. He brought him word how that the treasury in Jerusalem was full of untold sums of money, so that the multitude of the funds was innumerable, and that they didn’t pertain to the account of the sacrifices, but that it was possible that these should fall under the king’s power. When Apollonius met the king, he informed him of the money about which he had been told. So the king appointed Heliodorus, who was his chancellor, and sent him with a command to accomplish the removal of the reported money. So Heliodorus set out on his journey at once, ostensibly to visit the cities of Coelesyria and Phoenicia, but in fact to execute the king’s purpose.

When he had come to Jerusalem and had been courteously received by the high priest of the city, he told him about the information which had been given, and declared why he had come; and he inquired if in truth these things were so. The high priest explained to him that there were in the treasury deposits of widows and orphans, and moreover some money belonging to Hyrcanus the son of Tobias, a man in very high place, not as that impious Simon falsely alleged; and that in all there were four hundred talents of silver and two hundred of gold, and that it was altogether impossible that wrong should be done to those who had put trust in the holiness of the place, and in the majesty and inviolable sanctity of the temple, honored over all the world. But Heliodorus, because of the king’s command given him, said that in any case this money must be confiscated for the king’s treasury.

So having appointed a day, he entered in to direct the inquiry concerning these matters; and there was no small distress throughout the whole city. The priests, prostrating themselves before the altar in their priestly garments, and called toward heaven upon him who gave the law concerning deposits, that he should preserve these treasures safe for those who had deposited them. Whoever saw the appearance of the high priest was wounded in mind; for his countenance and the change of his color betrayed the distress of his soul. For a terror and a shuddering of the body had come over the man, by which the pain that was in his heart was plainly shown to those who looked at him. Those who were in the houses rushed out in crowds to make a universal supplication, because the place was about to come into dishonor. The women, girded with sackcloth under their breasts, thronged the streets. The virgins who were kept indoors ran together, some to the gates, others to the walls, and some looked out through the windows. All, stretching out their hands toward heaven, made their solemn supplication. Then it was pitiful to see the multitude prostrating themselves all mixed together, and the anxiety of the high priest in his great distress.

While therefore they called upon the Almighty Lord to keep the things entrusted to them safe and secure for those who had entrusted them, Heliodorus went on to execute that which had been decreed. But when he was already present there with his guards near the treasury, the Sovereign of spirits and of all authority caused a great manifestation, so that all who had presumed to come with him, stricken with dismay at the power of God, fainted in terror. For they saw a horse with a frightening rider, adorned with beautiful trappings, and he rushed fiercely and struck at Heliodorus with his forefeet. It seemed like he who sat on the horse had complete armor of gold. Two others also appeared to him, young men notable in their strength, and beautiful in their glory, and splendid in their apparel, who stood by him on either side, and scourged him unceasingly, inflicting on him many sore stripes. When he had fallen suddenly to the ground, and great darkness had come over him, his guards picked him up and put him on a stretcher, and carried him—this man who had just now entered with a great retinue and all his guard into the aforesaid treasury, himself now brought to utter helplessness, manifestly made to recognize the sovereignty of God. So, while he, through the working of God, speechless and bereft of all hope and deliverance, lay prostrate, they blessed the Lord who acted marvelously for his own place. The temple, which a little before was full of terror and alarm, was filled with joy and gladness after the Almighty Lord appeared.

But quickly some of Heliodorus’s familiar friends implored Onias to call upon the Most High to grant life to him who lay quite at the last gasp. The high priest, secretly fearing lest the king might come to think that some treachery toward Heliodorus had been perpetrated by the Jews, brought a sacrifice for the recovery of the man. But as the high priest was making the atoning sacrifice, the same young men appeared again to Heliodorus, arrayed in the same garments. They stood and said, “Give Onias the high priest great thanks, for for his sake the Lord has granted you life. See that you, since you have been scourged from heaven, proclaim to all men the sovereign majesty of God.” When they had spoken these words, they vanished out of sight. So Heliodorus, having offered a sacrifice to the Lord and vowed great vows to him who had saved his life, and having bidden Onias farewell, returned with his army to the king. He testified to all men the works of the greatest God, which he had seen with his eyes.

When the king asked Heliodorus what sort of man was fit to be sent yet once again to Jerusalem, he said, “If you have any enemy or conspirator against the state, send him there, and you will receive him back well scourged, if he even escapes with his life; because truly there is some power of God in that place. For he who has his dwelling in heaven himself has his eyes on that place and helps it. Those who come to hurt it, he strikes and destroys.”

This was the history of Heliodorus and the keeping of the treasury.

The previously mentioned Simon, who had given information about the money against his country, slandered Onias, saying that it was he who had incited Heliodorus and had been the real cause of these evils. He dared to call him a conspirator against the state who was actually the benefactor of the city, the guardian of his fellow countrymen, and a zealot for the laws. When his hatred grew so great that even murders were perpetrated through one of Simon’s approved agents, Onias, seeing the danger of the contention, and that Apollonius the son of Menestheus, the governor of Coelesyria and Phoenicia, was increasing Simon’s malice, appealed to the king, not to be an accuser of his fellow citizens, but looking to the good of all the people, both public and private; for he saw that without the king’s involvement it was impossible for the state to obtain peace any more, and that Simon would not cease from his madness.

When Seleucus was deceased, and Antiochus, who was called Epiphanes, succeeded to the kingdom, Jason the brother of Onias supplanted his brother in the high priesthood, having promised to the king at an audience three hundred sixty talents of silver, and out of another fund eighty talents. In addition to this, he undertook to assign one hundred fifty more, if it might be allowed him through the king’s authority to set him up a gymnasium and a body of youths to be trained in it, and to register the inhabitants of Jerusalem as citizens of Antioch. When the king had assented, and Jason had taken possession of the office, he immediately shifted those of his own race to the Greek way of life. Setting aside the royal ordinances of special favor to the Jews, granted by the means of John the father of Eupolemus, who went on the mission to the Romans to establish friendship and alliance, and seeking to overthrow the lawful ways of living, he brought in new customs forbidden by the law. For he eagerly established a gymnasium under the citadel itself, and caused the noblest of the young men to wear the Greek hat. Thus there was an extreme of hellenization, and an advance of a foreign religion, by reason of the exceeding profaneness of Jason, who was an ungodly man and not a high priest; so that the priests had no more any zeal for the services of the altar; but despising the sanctuary and neglecting the sacrifices, they hastened to enjoy that which was unlawfully provided in the wrestling arena, after the summons to the discus-throwing. They despised the honors of their fathers, and valued the prestige of the Greeks best of all. For this reason, severe calamity overtook them. The men whose ways of living they earnestly followed, and to whom they desired to be made like in all things, these became their enemies and punished them. For it is not a light thing to show irreverence to God’s laws, but later events will make this clear.

Now when certain games that came every fifth year were kept at Tyre, and the king was present, the vile Jason sent sacred envoys, as being Antiochians of Jerusalem, bearing three hundred drachmas of silver to the sacrifice of Hercules, which even the bearers thereof thought not right to use for any sacrifice, because it was not fit, but to spend it for another purpose. Although the sender intended that this money was for the sacrifice of Hercules, yet on account of present circumstances it went to the construction of trireme warships.

Now when Apollonius the son of Menestheus was sent into Egypt for the enthronement of Philometor as king, Antiochus, learning that Philometor had shown himself hostile toward the government, took precautions for the security of his realm. Therefore, going to Joppa, he travelled on to Jerusalem. Being magnificently received by Jason and the city, he was brought in with torches and shouting. Then he led his army down into Phoenicia.

Now after a space of three years, Jason sent Menelaus, the previously mentioned Simon’s brother, to carry the money to the king, and to make reports concerning some necessary matters. But he being commended to the king, and having been glorified by the display of his authority, secured the high priesthood for himself, outbidding Jason by three hundred talents of silver. After receiving the royal mandates, he returned bringing nothing worthy of the high priesthood, but having the passion of a cruel tyrant and the rage of a savage animal. So Jason, who had supplanted his own brother, was supplanted by another and driven as a fugitive into the country of the Ammonites. Menelaus had possession of the office, but of the money that had been promised to the king nothing was regularly paid, even though Sostratus the governor of the citadel demanded it— for his job was the gathering of the revenues—so they were both called by the king to his presence. Menelaus left his own brother Lysimachus for his deputy in the high priesthood; and Sostratus left Crates, who was over the Cyprians.

Now while this was the state of things, it came to pass that the people of Tarsus and Mallus revolted because they were to be given as a present to Antiochis, the king’s concubine. The king therefore quickly came to settle matters, leaving for his deputy Andronicus, a man of high rank. Then Menelaus, supposing that he had gotten a favorable opportunity, presented to Andronicus certain vessels of gold belonging to the temple, which he had stolen. He had already sold others into Tyre and the neighboring cities. When Onias had sure knowledge of this, he sharply reproved him, having withdrawn himself into a sanctuary at Daphne, that lies by Antioch. Therefore Menelaus, taking Andronicus aside, asked him to kill Onias. Coming to Onias, and being persuaded to use treachery, and being received as a friend, Andronicus gave him his right hand with oaths and, though he was suspicious, persuaded him to come out of the sanctuary. Then, with no regard for justice, he immediately put him to death. For this reason not only Jews, but many also of the other nations, had indignation and displeasure at the unjust murder of the man. And when the king had come back from the places in Cilicia, the Jews who were in the city appealed to him against Andronicus (the Greeks also joining with them in hatred of the wickedness), urging that Onias had been wrongfully slain. Antiochus therefore was heartily sorry, and was moved to pity, and wept, because of the sober and well ordered life of him who was dead. Being inflamed with anger, he immediately stripped off Andronicus’s purple robe, and tore off his under garments, and when he had led him round through the whole city to that very place where he had committed the outrage against Onias, there he put the murderer out of the way, the Lord rendering to him the punishment he had deserved.

Now when many sacrileges had been committed in the city by Lysimachus with the consent of Menelaus, and when the report of them had spread abroad outside, the people gathered themselves together against Lysimachus, after many vessels of gold had already been stolen. When the multitudes were rising against him and were filled with anger, Lysimachus armed about three thousand men, and with unrighteous violence began the attack under the leadership of Hauran, a man far gone in years and no less also in folly. But when they perceived the assault of Lysimachus, some caught up stones, others logs of wood, and some took handfuls of the ashes that lay near, and they flung them all in wild confusion at Lysimachus and those who were with him. As a result, they wounded many of them, they killed some, and they forced the rest of them to flee, but the author of the sacrilege himself they killed beside the treasury.

But about these matters, there was an accusation laid against Menelaus. When the king had come to Tyre, the three men who were sent by the senate pleaded the cause before him. But Menelaus, seeing himself now defeated, promised much money to Ptolemy the son of Dorymenes, that he might win over the king. Therefore Ptolemy taking the king aside into a cloister, as if to get some fresh air, convinced him to change his mind. He who was the cause of all the evil, Menelaus, he discharged from the accusations; but these hapless men, who, if they had pleaded even before Scythians, would have been discharged uncondemned, them he sentenced to death. Those who were spokesmen for the city and the families of Israel and the holy vessels soon suffered that unrighteous penalty. Therefore even certain Tyrians, moved with hatred of the wickedness, provided magnificently for their burial. But Menelaus, through the covetous dealings of those who were in power, remained still in his office, growing in wickedness, established as a great conspirator against his fellow citizens.