12:46. It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins.
It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead.... Here is an evident and undeniable proof of the practice of praying for the dead under the old law, which was then strictly observed by the Jews, and consequently could not be introduced at that time by Judas, their chief and high priest, if it had not been always their custom.
2 Machabees Chapter 13
Antiochus and Lysias again invade Judea. Menelaus is put to death. The king’s great army is worsted twice. The peace is renewed.
13:1. In the year one hundred and forty-nine, Judas understood that Antiochus Eupator was coming with a multitude against Judea,
13:2. And with him Lysias, the regent, who had charge over the affairs of the realm, having with him a hundred and ten thousand footmen, five thousand horsemen, twenty-two elephants, and three hundred chariots armed with hooks.
A hundred and ten thousand, etc.... The difference between the numbers here set down, and those recorded, 1 Mac. 4, is easily accounted for; if we consider that such armies as these are liable to be at one time more numerous than at another; either by sending away large detachments, or being diminished by sickness; or increased by receiving fresh supplies of troops, according to different exigencies or occurrences.
13:3. Menelaus also joined himself with them: and with great deceitfulness besought Antiochus, not for the welfare of his country, but in hopes that he should be appointed chief ruler.
13:4. But the King of kings stirred up the mind of Antiochus against the sinner, and upon Lysias suggesting that he was the cause of all the evils, he commanded (as the custom is with them) that he should be apprehended and put to death in the same place.
13:5. Now there was in that place a tower fifty cubits high, having a heap of ashes on every side: this had a prospect steep down.