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Context No. 650 of 4322 · 1 Maccabees

Context · Reflection

1 Maccabees 8:17-22: in context

17So Judas chose Eupolemus the son of John, the son of Accos, and Jason the son of Eleazar, and sent them to Rome, to establish friendship and alliance with them, 18and that they should free the yoke from themselves; for they saw that the kingdom of the Greeks kept Israel in bondage. 19Then they went to Rome, a very long journey, and they entered into the senate house, and said, 20“Judas, who is also called Maccabaeus, and his kindred, and the people of the Jews, have sent us to you, to make an alliance and peace with you, and that we might be registered as your allies and friends.” 21This thing was pleasing to them. 22This is the copy of the writing which they wrote back again on tables of brass, and sent to Jerusalem, that it might be with them there for a memorial of peace and alliance:

The first book of Maccabees tells the Jewish revolt against the Greek kings who ruled the land in the 160s BC. Judas Maccabeus has won a run of battles against the Seleucids, and this chapter opens with a long, admiring report of a distant state that had beaten kings and kept no king of its own: Rome. Judas sends two envoys, Eupolemus and Jason, on the long road to the Roman senate to ask for an alliance against the Greeks.

The senate agrees, and the terms are cut into bronze and sent back to Jerusalem to be kept as a record. It is the first treaty between the Jews and Rome, around 161 BC, and Josephus preserved a version of it. The book reads Rome as the answer to a nearer threat. It does not see the longer one. The same Rome courted here as a friend against the Greeks would, a century later under Pompey, march into Jerusalem and take the temple (63 BC).

An alliance made against today's enemy wrote in a larger master for later. What am I inviting in to solve the trouble in front of me, without counting what it will cost once it is here?

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