- Lysias (Syrian chancellor)
Lysias, or Lusias (b.???BC - d.162 BC) was a second century
Seleucid General andgovernor ofSyria under theSeleucid Empire .He was described as, "A noble man, and one of the blood royal".
Antiochus IV Epiphanes (circa 166 BC) left him with the government of Southern Syria and the guardianship of his son, while Antiochus went in person intoPersia to collect the revenues which were not coming in satisfactorily. [ 1 Macc 3:32; 2 Macc 10:11 ]According to
Josephus [ Ant., XII, vii, 2 ] , the instructions of Lysias were "to conquerJudea , enslave its inhabitants, utterly destroyJerusalem and abolish the whole nation." Lysias, accordingly, armed againstJudas Maccabeus a large force under Ptolemy, son of Dorymenes, Nicanor and Gorgias. Of this force Judas defeated the two divisions under Nicanor and Gorgias nearEmmaus (166 BC), and in the following year Lysias himself at Beth-zur (Bethsura) [ 1 Macc 4 ] , after which he proceeded to the purification of the temple.In the narration of these campaigns there are considerable differences between the writers of 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees which scholars have not found easy to explain. Antiochus died at
Babylon on his Persian expedition (164 BC), and Lysias assumed the office ofregent during the minority of his son, who was yet a child. [ 1 Macc 6:17 ] He collected another army atAntioch , and after the re-capture of Beth-zur was besiegingJerusalem when he learned of the approach of Philip to whom Antiochus, on his deathbed, had entrusted the guardianship of the prince. [ 1 Macc 6:15; 2 Macc 13 ] He defeated Philip in 163 BC and was supported atRome , but in the following year he fell with his ward Antiochus into the hands of Demetrius I, who put both of them to death. [ 1 Macc 7:1-23 ]Notes
References
Hutchinson, J. (1915). " [http://studylight.org/enc/isb/view.cgi?number=T5622 Lysias] ". "International Standard Bible Encyclopedia". Eds. Orr, James, M.A., D.D. Retrieved
December 9 ,2005 .
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