[507] This was the interpretation given by the great father Ephræm Syrus in the first century. Hitzig, Kuenen, and others count from Alexander the Great, and omit Ptolemy Philometor.
[508] Dan. xi. 21.
[509] Appian, Syr., 45; Liv., xli. 24. The story of his attempt to rob the Temple at Jerusalem, rendered so famous by the great picture of Raphael in the Vatican stanze, is not mentioned by Josephus, but only in 2 Macc. iii. 24-40. In 4 Macc. it is told, without the miracle, of Apollonius. There can be little doubt that something of the kind happened, but it was perhaps due to an imposture of the Jewish high priest.
[510] Porphyry interpreted the three kings who succumbed to the little horn to be Ptolemy Philometor, Ptolemy Euergetes II., and Artaxias, King of Armenia. The critics who begin the ten kings with Alexander the Great count Seleucus IV. (Philopator) as one of the three who were supplanted by Antiochus. Von Gutschmid counts as one of the three a younger brother of Demetrius, said to have been murdered by Antiochus (Müller, Fr. Hist. Græc., iv. 558).
[511] Comp. viii. 23.
[512] Comp. λαλεῖν μέγαλα (Rev. xiii. 5); Hom., Od., xvi. 243.
[513] Comp. xi. 36.
[514] Jos., B. J., I. i. 2, VI. x. 1. In Antt., XII. v. 3, Josephus says he took Jerusalem by stratagem.
[515] Jahn, Hebr. Commonwealth, § xciv.; Ewald, Hist. of Isr., v. 293-300.
[516] 2 Macc. iv. 9-15: "The priests had no courage to serve any more at the altar, but despising the Temple, and neglecting the sacrifices, hastened to be partakers of the unlawful allowance in the place of exercise, after the game of Discus ... not setting by the honours of their fathers, but liking the glory of the Grecians best of all."