195:1.7

After Alexander the Macedonian, the son of Philip, who came out of the land of Chittim, and struck Darius king of the Persians and Medes, it came to pass, after he had struck him, that he reigned in his place, in former time, over Greece. He fought many battles, won many strongholds, killed the kings of the earth, went through to the ends of the earth, and took spoils of a multitude of nations. The earth was quiet before him. He was exalted. His heart was lifted up. He gathered together an exceedingly strong army and ruled over countries, nations, and principalities, and they paid him tribute.

King Antiochus was traveling through the upper countries; and he heard that in Elymais in Persia there was a city renowned for riches, for silver and gold, and that the temple which was in it was exceedingly rich, and that in it were golden shields, breastplates, and weapons which Alexander, son of Philip, the Macedonian king, who reigned first among the Greeks, left behind there. So he came and tried to take the city and to pillage it; and he was not able, because his plan was known to them of the city, and they rose up against him in battle. He fled and returned to Babylon with great disappointment.

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.