2 Maccabees — Chapter 15

Nicanor autem ut comperit

Nicanor, having received intelligence that Judas was in the places of Samaria, thought to set on him in perfect security upon the Sabbath day. Nicanor presumed that the Jews by reason of the religious repose of the Sabbath commanded by God would not fight on that day, but would allow themselves to be slaughtered.

At ille ait et ego potens sum

But he said: And I am mighty upon the earth, who command arms to be taken up, and affairs of the king to be dispatched. Nevertheless he did not accomplish his purpose. Lapide comments: see here the blasphemous act of Nicanor, by which he equates himself with God — as if to say: God rules in his heaven; but I rule on earth, and command you, O Jews whom I have forced to follow my camp, to fight on the Sabbath against Judas and the Jews your kinsmen. His blasphemous self-assertion stirred the anger both of the Jews in his camp (who refused to obey) and of God, who inflamed Nicanor's anger so that he was cut down, decapitated, and hanged by Judas. Similar arrogance is displayed by Mezentius the atheist in Virgil (Aeneid X): \"My right hand is my God, and the spear I hurl\" — and by Capeneus in Statius (Thebaid II and X).

Et allocutus eos de Lege et Prophetis

And allocuting them from the Law and the Prophets, and putting them in mind of the battles they had fought before, he made them more prompt. That is, citing sentences from Sacred Scripture by which God promises certain triumph to those who rightly worship and invoke him (Deuteronomy 26 and elsewhere). Bringing to their mind the victories God had already given them, Judas both established in them the firm hope of victory and increased their military ardour.

Singulos autem illorum armavit

But he armed each one of them, not with protection of shield and lance, but with the best speeches and exhortations, and the telling of a trustworthy dream, through which he made all glad. \"A trustworthy dream\" — the Greek has ὅναρ (somnium = a dream) but another reading has ὅρασις (= true vision, which was not so much a dream as truth itself). So Homer (Iliad XV) writes: \"not an empty and false dream but a solid and true one.\" This allows the opinion that Judas truly saw with his eyes Onias and Jeremias, and truly received from him the golden sword — but Lapide regards this as untrue; it was an imaginary vision during sleep, signified by the word ὄναρ (somnium); and if he had truly received a real sword, he would have shown it to his companions to animate them, which Scripture does not record. Thus Sanchez.

Erat autem hujuscemodi visus

Now the vision was in this manner: Onias, who had been high priest, a good and virtuous man, modest in his looks, gentle in his manners, beautiful in speech, and who from a child was exercised in virtues, stretching forth his hands, prayed for all the people of the Jews. Onias, who was known to Judas from his face and appearance, is seen in his dream praying with extended hands. Onias had been high priest eleven years before, extruded by his brother Jason who purchased the pontificate from Antiochus Epiphanes, and later murdered by Andronicus at the instigation of Menelaus (chapter 4:34). Question: do the souls in Purgatory pray for us? Lapide cites those who affirm (Richardus, Gabriel, Medina) and those who deny (St. Thomas, Alensis, Abulensis, St. Antoninus, Sylvester, Navarrus). He concludes with Suarez (De Oratione in communi I, cap. x, near end): if anyone invokes souls in Purgatory, piously believing they hear him, he does not sin, because he acts from pious credulity and affection, and exposes himself to no danger; because if perhaps it is otherwise and those souls do not receive such prayers, nonetheless his prayer will return into his own bosom. And perhaps it is even true that those souls, at least when they become blessed, know all the prayers directed to them throughout the whole time they were in Purgatory, and are moved thereby to intercede for those who prayed for them.

Post hoc apparuisse et alium

After this there appeared also another man, admirable for age and glory, and surrounded by great beauty and majesty. Judas did not recognise Jeremias, since the prophet had died four hundred years before; he therefore asked Onias (known to him) who that august and venerable man was; and Onias answered.

Respondentem vero Oniam dixisse

And Onias answering, said: This is a lover of his brethren, and of the people of Israel; this is he that prayeth much for the people, and for all the holy city, Jeremias the prophet of God. Jeremias appeared to Judas in preference to Isaiah, Amos, Jonah, and the other prophets, because he himself with immense zeal had prophesied for forty-five years labouring for the salvation of Israel, striving to prevent the destruction of his nation — which however, on account of the enormity of its sins and its refusal to hear his sound counsels, he was unable to prevent from the capture and burning of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans. For this reason he suffered many harsh and bitter things from the Jews himself, as Lapide has explained throughout his commentary on Jeremiah.

Accipe sanctum gladium

Accept this holy sword, a gift from God, with which thou shalt overthrow the adversaries of my people Israel. Not truly and really did Jeremias give Judas a sword, as Lapide says. For this was a dream and symbolic vision in which it seemed to Judas that he was receiving a sword from Jeremias, so that he and his companions might be animated for battle and might conceive the certain hope of victory, since God was fighting with them and through them against the impious and blasphemous Nicanor. So also the sword was not of iron (as swords used in war by men) but of gold, as being celestial and divine — for divine things are golden; gold, the most precious and splendid of metals, represents God and God's most august gifts. Note: \"a holy sword\" — that is, blessed. The custom has prevailed that leaders and soldiers have their standards and arms blessed by bishops and priests, both that through the prayers and blessing of the Church they may be more efficacious for victory, and to drive away magic arts by which enemies often make themselves invulnerable with the help of the devil, as we have experienced in the German war. St. Louis had his standard blessed by the Bishop of Paris before the crusade. So also Ithalius won a chariot race after St. Hilarion had blessed his horses (St. Jerome, Vita Hilarionis). Lapide cites extensively from Gretserus (De Benedictionibus and De Cruce) on the custom of blessing armies and of the Crusades, and from the Roman Ritual.

Manu quidem pugnantes

Fighting with their hands, but praying to the Lord with their hearts, they slew not less than thirty-five thousand, magnificently delighting in the presence of God. Josephus gives nine thousand; Gorionides thirty thousand. The text says thirty-five thousand. All were killed or put to flight.

Cumque cessassent et cum gaudio

And when they had ceased, and were returning with joy, they understood that Nicanor had fallen with his armour. Gorionides gives a slightly different account (III, xxii): \"Judas saw in the very battle Nicanor with drawn sword in hand, and crying out said: Against you, O Nicanor. And as he ran against him in the force of his spirit, Nicanor turned his shoulder and fled from the face of Judas, and Judas caught him and struck him with his sword, and cut him in two parts, casting him down to the earth.\"

Facto itaque clamore

So they, making a great noise, and a tumult, blessed the Lord Almighty in their native tongue. \"In the native tongue\" — that is, in the Hebrew language, singing Davidic Psalms appointed for victory and thanksgiving; or \"native\" means with a brave and generous voice befitting strong and victorious men (Salianus).

Omnes igitur coeli

All therefore, blessing the Lord of heaven, said: Blessed be he that hath kept his own place undefiled. \"Lord of heaven\" (coeli) is better referred to \"Lord\" — that is, all the Jews blessed God who is the Lord of heaven; hence the Greek reads: \"They blessed the Lord in heaven,\" that is, with loud voices crying out to heaven.

Habere autem celebritatem

And they decreed that this day should be kept yearly, being the thirteenth of Adar (which is said in the Syrian tongue to be the day before Mardochai's day). Adar corresponds to February. So the feast of the slaying of Nicanor, instituted on 13 Adar, came the day before the feast of Lots (Purim) which Mardochai and Esther instituted to be celebrated on 14 and 15 Adar in memory of Israel's liberation from the slaughter decreed by Aman (Esther 9:17, 21, 31). Therefore the fast which had been imposed on the Jews before the feast of Lots was either abolished by this triumphant feast of Nicanor's defeat, or transferred to another day. Lapide notes the textual issue raised by Ribera (De Templo V, xvii): the correct reading is \"the thirteenth day of the month (Adar, as it is called in the Syrian tongue), the day before Mardochai's day\" — with \"Adar\" in parenthesis and \"Syrian\" not referring to the name of the feast but to the name of the month.

Ego quoque in his faciam

Therefore I will here make an end of my discourse. If it is well composed and as the story required, that is what I desired; but if it is not so perfect, it must be pardoned me. The author of this book (Judas the Essene) here ends the history because his purpose was to narrate only the heroic deeds of Judas Maccabeus up to his glorious victory over Nicanor and the feast instituted for this occasion; so that the Jews in Egypt (to whom he wrote this book, as is clear from its beginning) might celebrate the same feast there. Thus St. Thomas.

Sin autem minus digne

But if it is not so perfect, it must be pardoned me. The author tacitly asks pardon not for any lapse, error, or falsehood (which is impossible in a hagiographer who was the organ and instrument of the Holy Spirit), but for his style and phrasing, if it should seem to anyone less elegant and polished. For the Holy Spirit assisted the hagiographers and directed them so that they never departed from the truth and always conceived the true meaning in their minds, but allowed them to write it in their own words, style, and phrasing. Hence Isaiah's style is more elegant and beautiful than that of the other Prophets, because he as a man of noble rank, learned and cultivated, had by study imbibed a more elegant style. The Holy Spirit accommodates himself in phrasing to his scribe as to an instrument. The author therefore, though himself elegant and eloquent, from modesty asks pardon if \"less worthily\" (Greek: \"if more thinly and feebly\" — i.e., less worthy, grave, and elegant than the dignity of the divine history or the cultivated taste of learned readers will desire) he has written.

Sicut enim vinum semper

For as it is hurtful to drink wine always, or always water, but pleasant to use sometimes the one and sometimes the other; so if the speech be always curiously exact, it will not be pleasing to the readers. Variety pleases nature, according to the saying: \"Alternating songs please the Camenae\" (Virgil, Ecl. III). Readers are pleased by variety in a writer's style — now raising it and making it weighty and polished, now lowering it and making it lighter and less cultured. The Greek elaborates: \"For just as it is harmful to drink wine alone, and likewise to drink water alone; but wine mixed with water makes a sweet and delightful grace (= brings a pleasing delight to the taste), so too the preparation of the speech (so that mixed with a certain pleasant temperance and moderation it may be graceful and well-formed) delights the hearing of those who read it, if it is read aloud by another, and the eyes if they read it themselves.\" Just as unmixed wine always drunk inflames the head and body, and pure water always drunk creates phlegm; but wine mixed with water moderates and tempers the heat of wine and the coldness of water and brings them to a pleasant mean — so speech either too weighty or too thin is disagreeable to readers and brings tedium; but speech moderate and reduced to a proper temperance is pleasing and joyful. So Lapide ends with his own characteristic note: variety, as well as moderation in all things, is pleasing, savoury, and delightful; without it satiety and distaste creep over everything in the world, as Cicero says and daily experience teaches.