Sacred Texts Christianity Early Church Fathers Index Previous Next
Demetrius, having thus obtained the kingdom, treated Jonathan with kindness, made a treaty with him, and restored the Jews to their own laws. In the meantime, Tryphon, who had belonged to the party of Alexander, was appointed 349 governor of Syria, to keep him in check by war. Jonathan, 350 on the other hand, descended to battle, formidable with an army of forty thousand men. Tryphon, when he saw himself unequal to the contest, pretended a desire for peace, and slew Ptolemais who had been received and invited into friendship with him. After Jonathan, the chief power was conferred on his brother Simon. He celebrated the funeral of his brother with great pomp, and built those well-known seven pyramids of most noble workmanship, in which he buried the remains both of his brothers and of his father. Then Demetrius renewed his treaty with the Jews; and in consideration of the loss caused to them by Tryphon (for after the death of Jonathan he had wasted by war their cities and territories), he remitted to them their annual tribute forever; for up to that time, they had paid tribute to the kings of Syria, except when they resisted by force of arms. That took place in the second year of king Demetrius; and we have noted that, because up to this year we have run through the times of the Asiatic kings, that the series of dates being given in order might be perfectly clear. But now we shall arrange the order of events through the times of those, who were either high-priests or kings among the Jews, up to the period of the birth of Christ.
Some words have here been lost, but the critics are not agreed as to what should be supplied.
109:350As Vorstius suggests, we have here taken Jonathan as a nominative, but the passage is very obscure.