How do death, siege and peace follow one another?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Antiochus’s death leads to a new king’s invasion, famine and a treaty soon violated.

Chapter breakdown

The heading calls Antiochus’s repentance fruitless and announces death, invasion, siege and peace. In the upper countries he hears of Persian Elymais’s wealth and a temple with gold coverings, breastplates and shields left by Alexander son of Philip. His attempted capture and plunder fail because citizens know the design and rise in battle. He flees sadly toward Babylonia; while still in Persia he hears of Judean armies’ defeats, Lysias’s retreat, Israelites strengthened by arms and spoils, the abomination removed and sanctuary and Bethsura walled. Frightened and moved, he lies sick for grief over failed expectations and anticipates death after many days. He tells friends of sleeplessness, wasting and anxiety, recalls former happiness, Jerusalem’s stolen gold and silver and the unjust destruction order, and attributes his present evils to these acts. He makes Philip regent, giving crown, robe and ring to educate his son for rule, and dies in year 149. Lysias sets the son over the kingdom and calls him Eupator.

Castle occupants continually harm Israelites around the holy places and strengthen Gentiles. Judas besieges them with slings and engines in year 150. Some besieged escape and wicked Israelites join them in appealing to the king. They report loyalty to his father, alienation, killings and spoiled inheritances, attacks across borders, siege of Jerusalem’s castle and Bethsura’s fortification, urging speed before greater losses. The angry king gathers friends and officers, with hired troops from other realms and islands:100,000 footmen,20,000 horsemen and 32 trained elephants. They approach Bethsura through Idumea and fight many days. The edition explains that the citizens sally and burn the besiegers’ engines.

Judas leaves the castle and camps at Bethzacharam facing the king. Before light the king advances, armies prepare and trumpets sound. Elephants are shown the blood of grapes and mulberries to provoke combat. Each has a thousand men in mail with brass helmets and five hundred chosen horsemen accompanying its movement, explained as ready for every occasion. Wooden towers and engines cover the beasts; each carries thirty-two valiant fighters above and an Indian to rule it. Other cavalry stand at both wings with trumpets to hasten the thick legions. Sun on gold and brass shields makes mountains glitter; the army moves warily and orderly through high and low ground. Inhabitants are moved by numbers, marching and rattling armor.

Judas engages and six hundred of the king’s men fall. Eleazar son of Saura sees a taller elephant with royal harness and supposes the king is on it. Seeking to deliver his people and gain an everlasting name, he runs through the legion, kills to right and left, goes between the elephant’s feet and beneath it, and slays it. It falls upon him and he dies. The text does not specify a belly wound, archers in its tower or confirmation of the rider. Seeing the king’s strength and army’s fierceness, Judas’s forces turn away. The royal army advances against Jerusalem and camps against Judea and Mount Sion.

Bethsura’s people make peace and leave because supplies fail in the land’s rest year; the king takes and garrisons it. He besieges the sanctuary for many days with slings, engines and implements for fire, stones, javelins and arrows. Defenders build opposing engines and fight. City food runs out in the seventh year; those staying in Judea after coming from the nations have consumed remaining stores. Famine scatters people to their own places, leaving few in the holy places.

Lysias hears that Philip, appointed to rear the king and rule, has returned with the eastern army from Persia and Media to assume kingdom affairs. He urgently urges agreement, citing daily decline, small provisions, the strong besieged place and the kingdom’s needs. He proposes allowing the nation its former laws, acknowledging that contempt for them provoked resistance. King and princes agree; the people accept peace and come out after oaths. Entering Sion and seeing its strength, the king quickly violates the oath by ordering the surrounding wall demolished. He hastens to Antioch, finds Philip in control, fights him and takes the city. This broken oath does not justify a general claim that secular treaties always lack honor.

The story inside

Eleazar supposes but does not confirm the king’s presence. The seventh year and consumed stores explain scarcity. Philip’s return prompts Lysias’s peace proposal.

Lessons worth keeping

1
Eleazar supposes but does not confirm the king’s presence.
2
The seventh year and consumed stores explain scarcity.
3
Philip’s return prompts Lysias’s peace proposal.

Test your recall

What does the king do after entering Sion?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 105678–105702
6:10. And he called for all his friends, and said to them: Sleep is gone from my eyes, and I am fallen away, and my heart is cast down for anxiety: 6:11. And I said in my heart: Into how much tribulation am I come, and into what floods of sorrow wherein now I am: I that was pleasant and beloved in my power! 6:12. But now I remember the evils that I have done in Jerusalem, from whence also I took away all the spoils of gold, and of silver, that were in it, and I sent to destroy the inhabitants of Juda without cause. 6:13. I know, therefore, that for this cause these evils have found me: and behold I perish with great grief in a strange land. 6:14. Then he called Philip, one of his friends, and he made him regent over all his kingdom. 6:15. And he gave him the crown, and his robe, and his ring, that he should go to Antiochus, his son, and should bring him up for the kingdom. 6:16. So king Antiochus died there in the year one hundred and forty-nine.
Lines 105748–105776
6:30. And the number of his army was an hundred thousand footmen, and twenty thousand horsemen, and thirty-two elephants trained to battle. 6:31. And they went through Idumea, and approached to Bethsura, and fought many days, and they made engines: but they sallied forth, and burnt them with fire, and fought manfully. But they sallied forth.... That is, the citizens of Bethsura sallied forth and burnt them, that is, burnt the engines of the besiegers. 6:32. And Judas departed from the castle, and removed the camp to Bethzacharam, over against the king’s camp. 6:33. And the king rose before it was light, and made his troops march on fiercely towards the way of Bethzacharam: and the armies made themselves ready for the battle, and they sounded the trumpets: 6:34. And they shewed the elephants the blood of grapes, and mulberries, to provoke them to fight. 6:35. And they distributed the beasts by the legions: and there stood by every elephant a thousand men in coats of mail, and with helmets of brass on their heads: and five hundred horsemen set in order were chosen for every beast. 6:36. These before the time wheresoever the beast was they were there: and whithersoever it went, they went, and they departed not from it. These before the time.... That is, these were ready for every occasion.
Lines 105800–105816
6:43. And Eleazar, the son of Saura, saw one of the beasts harnessed with the king’s harness: and it was higher than the other beasts; and it seemed to him that the king was on it: 6:44. And he exposed himself to deliver his people, and to get himself an everlasting name. 6:45. And he ran up to it boldly in the midst of the legion, killing on the right hand, and on the left, and they fell by him on this side and that side. 6:46. And he went between the feet of the elephant, and put himself under it: and slew it, and it fell to the ground upon him, and he died there. 6:47. Then they seeing the strength of the king and the fierceness of his army, turned away from them.
Lines 105851–105876
6:57. Wherefore he made haste to go, and say to the king and to the captains of the army: We decay daily, and our provision of victuals is small, and the place that we lay siege to is strong, and it lieth upon us to take order for the affairs of the kingdom. 6:58. Now, therefore, let us come to an agreement with these men, and make peace with them and with all their nation. 6:59. And let us covenant with them, that they may live according to their own laws, as before. For because of our despising their laws, they have been provoked, and have done all these things. 6:60. And the proposal was acceptable in the sight of the king, and of the princes: and he sent to them to make peace: and they accepted of it. 6:61. And the king and the princes swore to them: and they came out of the strong hold. 6:62. Then the king entered into Mount Sion, and saw the strength of the place: and he quickly broke the oath that he had taken, and gave commandment to throw down the wall round about. 6:63. And he departed in haste and returned to Antioch, where he found Philip master of the city: and he fought against him, and took the city.