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A Note on Antiochos Epiphanes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

E. R. Bevan
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Extract

Among the problems furnished us by that curious and interesting episode of ancient history—the collision of Hellenism and Israel under the fourth Antiochos—is the apparently flat contradiction between the conduct of Antiochos, as it appears in the Book of Daniel, and his conduct, as presented to us by classical authorities. It is not that opposite judgments are passed upon a personality or a policy from the standpoint of a worshipper of Jehovah and of a Greek observer—there would be nothing to surprise us in that. If the Book of Daniel did no more than denounce Antiochos for impiety towards the God of Israel, its statements would create no difficulty. But, as a matter of fact, it does not stop short there. It is an additional touch of horror in the portrait of the heathen king, that he not only ‘speaks marvellous things against the God of gods’ (ch. xi. 36)—this we were prepared to find—but that he ‘magnifies himself above every god.’ ‘Neither shall he regard the gods of his fathers, nor the Desire of women’ (probably Tanimuz), ‘nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all’ (v. 37). Now one of the things about Antiochos IV., which most impressed the Greek world, was his profuse devotion to the Hellenic gods.

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Type
Research Article
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The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 20 , November 1900, pp. 26 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1900

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References

page 26 note 1 Liv. (41, 12) says ‘Delon aris insignibus statuarumque copia exornavit,’ but his original Polybios has only τῶν περὶ τὸν ἐν Δήλῳ ἀνδριάν των

page 26 note 2 It conples this statement with another that the worship established by Antiochos on Gerizim was of Zeus Xenios. This second statement is to some extent corroborated by the correspondence between Antiochos and the Samaritans in Joseph, . A. xii. 258Google Scholar, which makes the cult on Gerizim one of Zeus, but with the surname Hellenios, not Xenios. At any rate (since Josephos had not Jason of Cyrene or II. Macc, before him) this measure of correspondence between his authority and II. Macc. helps to confirm the statements of the latter in this connexion.

page 27 note 1 One need not here embark on the vexed question whether Alexander and the first generation of his successors claimed divine honours. Even Niese admits in the case of Alexander that he received them. And where a despot is in question, the distinction between receiving with approbation and claiming is apt to be a fine one. It appears that in Egypt the state-cult of the θεοὶ σωτῆρες did not begin till after the deaths of Ptolemy I. and Berenike. But when von Prott, H. (Rhein. Mus. liii. [1898] p. 463Google Scholar) argues from this fact that, up to the time of the second Ptolemy, the worship of a living man was strange to the Greeks, he forgets that this assertion is confuted by the worship which (whether claimed or not) was indubitably offered by the Athenians to Alexander, by the same Athenians to Antigonos and Demetrios (Plut., Dem. 10Google Scholar), by the Rhodians to the first Ptolemy (Diod. 20, 100), by the Skepsians to Antigonos, (J.H.S. xix. p. 335Google Scholar), and, if Hirschfeld rightly interprets aninscription found in 1873, by the Ilians to the first Seleukos, (Archäol. Zeit.[1875] p. 155Google Scholar).

page 28 note 1 Babelon, Rois de Syrie, p. xi.

page 29 note 1 In certain coins, on which the head of Zeus appears (Babelon, Nos. 544–546): ‘les traits du dieu sont intentionellement rapprochés do la physionomie du roi’ (Babelon, p. xcvi). That in the title of νικηφόρος there is an allusion to the Nike-bearing Zeus is assumed by Babelon, and had been already, I think, pointed out by Hoffmann, , Antiochus IV. Epiphanes (Leipzig, 1873)Google Scholar.

page 29 note 2 The beginning of the next verse, which is translated in the R.V. ‘And he shall deal with the strongest fortresses by the help of a strange god,’ is really corrupt, and the meaning uncertain.