1But the aforementioned Simon, who had become the informer about the money and his country, was slandering Onias, alleging that he was the one who had instigated Heliodorus and had become the author of the troubles.
2He dared to call the benefactor of the city, the guardian of his fellow countrymen, and a zealot for the laws, a conspirator against the state.
3And as the enmity progressed to such a point that murders were even being committed by one of Simon’s approved men,
4Onias, seeing the danger of this rivalry and that Apollonius son of Menestheus, the governor of Coele-Syria and Phoenicia, was escalating Simon’s malice,
5made his way to the king—not to be an accuser of his fellow citizens, but looking out for the good of the whole populace, both collectively and individually.
6For he saw that without the king’s intervention it was impossible for the state of affairs to find peace, and that Simon would not cease from his folly.
7But when Seleucus had died and Antiochus, called Epiphanes, had taken over the kingdom, Jason the brother of Onias fraudulently obtained the high priesthood.
8He did so by promising the king in a petition three hundred and sixty talents of silver, and eighty talents from another source of revenue.
9In addition to this, he also promised to pay another one hundred and fifty talents if he were granted authority to establish a gymnasium and a youth center, and to enroll the people of Jerusalem as citizens of Antioch.
10When the king had consented and Jason had seized the office, he immediately began to convert his countrymen to the Greek way of life.
11He set aside the royal concessions established for the Jews through John the father of Eupolemus—who had undertaken the embassy to establish friendship and alliance with the Romans—and, abolishing the lawful ways of government, he introduced unlawful customs.
12For he gladly established a gymnasium right under the acropolis, and he enlisted the noblest of our young men and brought them under the petasos.
13And so high was the peak of Hellenism and the advance of foreign customs—on account of the surpassing profanity of the impious Jason, who was no true high priest—
14that the priests were no longer zealous for the services at the altar. Instead, despising the temple and neglecting the sacrifices, they hurried to take part in the unlawful activities of the wrestling school as soon as the discus was called for.
15They held their ancestral honors as worthless but considered Greek glories to be the finest of all.
16For this very reason a harsh predicament befell them: the very people whose way of life they emulated and whom they wished to be like in every way, they had as their enemies and punishers.
17For it is no light matter to act impiously against the divine laws, but the time that follows will make this clear.
18When the quadrennial games were being held in Tyre and the king was present,
19the vile Jason sent envoys, who were Antiochenes from Jerusalem, carrying three hundred silver drachmas for the sacrifice to Heracles. But the men carrying the money requested that it not be used for the sacrifice,
20but rather, on account of those present, be put toward the construction of triremes.
21When Apollonius son of Menestheus was sent to Egypt for the accession ceremonies of King Philometor, Antiochus learned that Philometor had become hostile to his policies, and so he took thought for his own security. Therefore, after going to Joppa, he went on to Jerusalem.
22He was magnificently welcomed by Jason and the city and was brought in with a torchlight procession and acclamations. Then he marched his army into Phoenicia.
23After a period of three years, Jason sent Menelaus, the brother of the aforementioned Simon, to carry the money to the king and to complete negotiations about necessary matters.
24But he, having been presented to the king, flattered him with an air of authority and secured the high priesthood for himself by outbidding Jason by three hundred talents of silver.
25So he returned with the royal commands, bringing nothing worthy of the high priesthood, but having the passions of a cruel tyrant and the rage of a savage beast.
26And so Jason, who had supplanted his own brother, was in turn supplanted by another and was driven as a fugitive into the land of Ammon.
27Menelaus, for his part, held the office, but he made no orderly payment of the money he had promised to the king,
28even though Sostratus, the commander of the citadel, was demanding it—for the collection of revenues was his responsibility. For this reason, both men were summoned by the king.
29Menelaus left his brother Lysimachus as his successor in the high priesthood, and Sostratus left Crates, the commander of the Cyprian troops.
30While these things were taking place, it happened that the people of Tarsus and Mallus revolted, because their cities had been given as a gift to Antiochis, the king’s concubine.
31So the king came quickly to settle the affairs, leaving as his deputy Andronicus, one of those in high office.
32But Menelaus, thinking he had found a favorable opportunity, stole some of the golden vessels from the temple and presented them to Andronicus. He had also sold others in Tyre and the surrounding cities.
33When Onias learned of this for certain, he made an accusation after withdrawing to a place of sanctuary at Daphne, near Antioch.
34Therefore Menelaus, taking Andronicus aside, urged him to do away with Onias. So Andronicus went to Onias; and—persuaded by treachery, giving his right hand, and exchanging pledges with oaths—he persuaded Onias, though he was suspicious, to come out of the sanctuary. He then killed him at once, with no regard for what was just.
35For this reason, not only the Jews but also many from the other nations were indignant and aggrieved at the unjust murder of the man.
36When the king returned from the regions of Cilicia, the Jews in the city, along with the Greeks who also hated the wickedness, petitioned him about Onias having been killed without cause.
37So Antiochus was deeply grieved, moved to pity, and wept because of the moderation and great propriety of the deceased man.
38Then, inflamed with rage, he immediately stripped Andronicus of his purple robe, tore off his tunics, and led him all around the city to the very place where he had committed the sacrilege against Onias. There he did away with the bloodthirsty murderer, as the Lord rendered to him the punishment he deserved.
39Now many acts of sacrilege were committed in the city by Lysimachus with Menelaus’s consent. When the report of this spread, and since many golden vessels had already been carried off, the crowd gathered against Lysimachus.
40As the crowds were being roused and filled with rage, Lysimachus armed about three thousand men and began to use unjust violence. A certain Auranus, a man advanced in age and no less in folly, took the lead.
41But when they became aware of Lysimachus’s attack, some snatched up stones, others clubs, and some grabbed handfuls of nearby ashes, and they hurled them indiscriminately at Lysimachus and his men.
42As a result, they wounded many of them, struck down some, and put them all to flight; and they killed the temple-robber himself beside the treasury.
43Concerning these matters, a charge was brought against Menelaus.
44And when the king arrived in Tyre, the three men sent by the council of elders presented their case before him.
45But Menelaus, seeing that he was already defeated, promised a substantial amount of money to Ptolemy son of Dorymenes to persuade the king.
46So Ptolemy took the king aside into a certain portico, as if for him to cool off, and swayed his opinion.
47And so he acquitted Menelaus, the cause of all the evil, of the charges, but he sentenced to death those wretched men who would have been acquitted as innocent if they had pleaded their case even before Scythians.
48So those who had pleaded for the city, the people, and the sacred vessels quickly suffered the unjust penalty.
49For this reason, even the Tyrians, hating the wickedness, lavishly provided for their burial.
50But Menelaus, through the greed of those in power, remained in his office, growing in wickedness and becoming a great conspirator against his fellow citizens.
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