¶The previously mentioned Simon, who had given information about the money against his country, slandered Onias, saying that it was he who had incited Heliodorus and had been the real cause of these evils.

He dared to call him a conspirator against the state who was actually the benefactor of the city, the guardian of his fellow countrymen, and a zealot for the laws.

When his hatred grew so great that even murders were perpetrated through one of Simon’s approved agents,

Onias, seeing the danger of the contention, and that ^*Apollonius the son of Menestheus, the governor of Coelesyria and Phoenicia, was increasing Simon’s malice,

appealed to the king, not to be an accuser of his fellow-citizens, but looking to the good of all the^* people, both public and private;

for he saw that without the king’s involvement it was impossible for the state to obtain peace any more, and that Simon would not cease from his madness.

¶When Seleucus was deceased, and Antiochus, who was called Epiphanes, succeeded to the kingdom, Jason the brother of Onias supplanted his brother in the high priesthood,

having promised to the king at an audience three hundred sixty talents of silver, and out of another fund eighty talents.

In addition to this, he undertook to assign one hundred fifty more, if it might be allowed him ^*through the king’s authority to set him up a gymnasium and a body of youths to be trained in it, and to register the inhabitants of Jerusalem as citizens of Antioch.

When the king had assented, and Jason had taken possession of the office, he immediately shifted those of his own race to the Greek way of life.

Setting aside the royal ordinances of special favor to the Jews, granted by the means of John the father of Eupolemus, who went on the mission to the Romans to establish friendship and alliance, and seeking to overthrow the lawful ways of living, he brought in new customs forbidden by the law.

For he eagerly established a gymnasium under the citadel itself, and caused the noblest of the young men to wear the Greek hat.

Thus there was an extreme of hellenization, and an advance of a foreign religion, by reason of the exceeding profaneness of Jason, who was an ungodly man and not a high priest;

so that the priests had no more any zeal for the services of the altar; but despising the sanctuary and neglecting the sacrifices, they hastened to enjoy that which was unlawfully provided in the wrestling arena, after the summons to the discus-throwing.

They despised the honors of their fathers, and valued the prestige of the Greeks best of all.

For this reason, severe calamity overtook them. The men whose ways of living they earnestly followed, and to whom they desired to be made like in all things, these became their enemies and punished them.

For it is not a light thing to show irreverence to God’s laws, but later events will make this clear.

¶Now when certain games that came every fifth year were kept at Tyre, and the king was present,

the vile Jason sent sacred envoys,^* as being Antiochians of Jerusalem, bearing three hundred drachmas of silver to the sacrifice of Hercules, which even the bearers thereof thought not right to use for any sacrifice, because it was not fit, but to spend it for another purpose.

Although the intended purpose of the sender this money was for the sacrifice of Hercules, yet on account of ^*present circumstances it went to the construction of trireme warships.

¶Now when Apollonius the son of Menestheus was sent into Egypt for the ^* enthronement of Philometor as king, Antiochus, learning that Philometor had shown himself hostile toward the government, took precautions for the security of his realm. Therefore, going to Joppa, he travelled on to Jerusalem.

Being magnificently received by Jason and the city, he was brought in with torches and shouting. Then he led his army down into Phoenicia.

¶Now after a space of three years, Jason sent Menelaus, the previously mentioned Simon’s brother, to carry the money to the king, and to make reports concerning some necessary matters.

But he being commended to the king, and having been glorified by the display of his authority, secured the high priesthood for himself, outbidding Jason by three hundred talents of silver.