The Governor Mistreats the Jews.

       Antiochus hurried back to Antioch, taking with him eighteen hundred talents from the temple. He was so arrogant that, in his pride, he thought he could sail on the land and traverse the sea on foot. However, he left governors behind to oppress the people: at Jerusalem he left Philip, a Phrygian by birth and with a more barbarous nature than the one who appointed him, and, at Mount Gerizim, Andronicus; and in addition to these there was Menelaus who lorded it over his compatriots worse than the others did.

       Such was Antiochus's animosity toward the Jewish people, that he sent Apollonius, the commander of the Mysians, with an army of twenty-two thousand men, with orders to slaughter all the adult men and to sell the women and children into slavery. When this man arrived in Jerusalem, he pretended to be peacefully disposed and waited until the holy Sabbath day. Then, finding the Jews abstaining from work, he ordered his men to parade fully armed. He put to the sword all those who came out to watch, and then he charged into the city with his armed warriors and slaughtered a great number of people.

       However, Judas Maccabeus, with about nine others, escaped into the wilderness, where he and his companions lived like wild animals in the hills, eating nothing but what grew wild there to avoid contracting defilement.

2 MACCABEES: chapter 5, verses 21 - 27