SRR 69 Antiochus IV and the Abomination of Desolation Part 2 (Eschatology And The Danielic Imperative Part 7)

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Polemical Ministry and the Call to Battle

The anathema of God was for those who denied justification by faith alone. When that is at stake, we need to be on the battlefield, exposing the air and combating the air.

We are unabashedly, unashamedly Clarkian. And so the next few statements that I'm going to make, I'm probably going to step on all of the Vantillian toes at the same time. And this is what we do at Simple Riff around the radio, you know.

We are polemical and polarizing Jesus style.

I would first say that to characterize what we do as bashing is itself bashing. It's not hate. It's history. It's not bashing. It's the Bible. Jesus said, Woe to you when men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way, as opposed to blessed are you when you have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness.

It is on. We're taking the gloves off. It's time to battle. And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great toward the south and toward the east and toward the pleasant land.

And it waxed even to the host of heaven, and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground and stamped upon them. Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host. And by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down.

And a host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression. And it cast down the truth to the ground, and it practiced and prospered. Daniel chapter 8 verses 9 through 12. All right, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Tim Shaughnessy, and this is Semper Reformanda Radio.

And I'm sure that most of our regular listeners have already guessed it. This is going to be another episode on eschatology with Timothy Kaufman. So we are going to be looking at the book of Daniel today, as I just read.

But before we get to that, I just want to remind everybody to check out the Trinity Foundation's book sale. Which is meant to commemorate the 500 year mark of the Protestant Reformation. This book sale is going to continue through December 31st.

So I definitely want to recommend our listeners take advantage of that. And with that, I want to introduce Timothy Kaufman. He is our resident expert in Roman Catholicism. He's also our expert in eschatology.

If you have any questions for Tim, you can contact us at semper .reformanda .radio at gmail .com. And I would also recommend that you check out his blog, whitehorseblog .com. Most of the stuff that Tim has gone over, actually I think probably all of the stuff that Tim has gone over, he has written to some extent on his blog.

It deals a lot with eschatology. So I just want to say thank you to Tim for all the work that he has put into this podcast. He puts in hours to put these episodes together. I think they are fantastic.

I agree with his eschatology. I've learned so much from our time together. So Tim, I want to give you an opportunity to just take it away.

Okay. Thank you, Tim.

I appreciate that introduction.

It is good to be back.

Daniel 7, Daniel 11, and the Historical Framework for Antiochus IV

We're glad to be continuing with this weekly series on eschatology. And this week we're going to cover Daniel chapter 8. And what I want to do first, though, is because it's been months since we started this series, I want to give a brief, about 5 or 10 minute summary of how we ended up talking about Daniel chapter 8, after talking about Daniel chapter 11, after talking about Daniel chapter 7.

And in fact, after this, we're going to start talking about Daniel chapter 9. And we want to be able to explain why it is that we're jumping from place to place. And in fact, the reason behind the shifts from one chapter to another, is because we are constantly confronted with traditional assumptions on the meaning of the text, from chapter to chapter.

And in each place, what we want to do is uncover the assumption and correct it. And that's what we've been doing since the beginning of the series. So let me start, if it's alright with you, Tim, I want to just go all the way back to chapter 7, to explain how we ended up here, talking about Antiochus IV and his reign as a descendant of the Seleucid line, in the four-way division of Alexander's Empire.

So, that's what I'd like to do today, if that's alright with you, Tim.

Yeah, let's do it. Go for it.

Okay, we started in this series in episode 1, explaining that in chapter 7, Daniel described the Roman Empire as a beast having ten horns. And there was a little horn that removed three horns and rose up among the remaining horns.

As we explained in that episode, in Revelation 12, 13, and 17, each beast still has ten horns. And in fact, when Christ is shown to return in Revelation 17, he makes war with Antichrist, plus ten horns.

If Antichrist, at the end, still has ten horns in his retinue when Christ returns, then Daniel must have seen and been aware of 13 total horns. And as we demonstrated in our first episode, each of the beasts in Daniel 7 is described in its last configuration, just prior to the rise of the next empire.

In that case, the ten horns Daniel saw were just after the little horn had removed three, and then he saw the little horn rising up among the remaining ten to rule over them as the next empire. A close reading of Daniel 7 shows that Daniel never actually says the little horn removed three of the ten, and when he describes the first horns, he never says the first horns were originally ten in number.

This is important to us in the Danielic chronology, because historically the church fathers and later eschatologists have been looking for and awaiting a ten-way division of the Roman Empire as a herald of the era of Antichrist, who, they assume, is to remove three of the ten horns.

In fact, we should have been looking for a thirteen-way division of the empire, and for someone to take three of the thirteen horns and rise up among the remaining ten to rule over them. That's what we should have been looking for, and that's the first assumption that we wanted to counter in our exploration of Danielic eschatology.

The fact is that Daniel knew of thirteen horns, and little horn had removed three and came up among the remaining ten, and what we find in that chapter is that Daniel never says the final number of horns is seven, but when we get to Revelation 12, 13, and 17, we find out that the final number was ten, and that means there must have been thirteen horns to begin with, and what we showed in that first episode was that the Roman Empire had, in fact, been divided thirteen ways into thirteen dioceses at the end of the fourth century, and that Roman Catholicism, which was based in Rome, rose to power in the three Roman dioceses of Italy, Egypt, and Orient, or literally the East, and established its power on the basis of the three Petrine Seas, or the three seats of Peter in Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch.

By the end of the fourth century, these were essentially the three metropolitan cities, or capital cities, of those three of the thirteen dioceses of the Roman Empire. Even to this day, Roman Catholicism claims the authority of Peter to rule over Christ Church based on the doctrine of the three Petrine Seas, a doctrine that originated in the latter part of the fourth century.

Roman Catholicism is that little horn of Daniel 7, and at all costs, the Church of Christ must remain ever vigilant to avoid the errors and influence of Roman Catholicism, the very Antichrist of prophecy.

We had much more to say on the rise of Roman Catholicism as the little horn of Daniel 7 in the earlier episodes, and we have much, much more to say about Roman Catholicism in the years since its rise to world power as a successor to the Roman Empire, and we'll cover that in this series, but it was important to lay out the historical fulfillment of a thirteen-way division of the Roman Empire, and the Roman Church uprooting three of them in order to establish itself as the successor to the Roman Empire.

Roman Catholicism is, in fact, the fifth empire of Daniel's visions, which is the Antichrist of prophecy. Now, with that said, we went from Daniel 7, which focuses largely on the division of the Roman Empire, straight to Daniel chapter 11, which focuses largely on the division of the Greek Empire.

And we've been in this chapter 11 for several episodes. The main reason we have dwelt so long on chapter 11 is that historically, and we mean for millennia, not just for years or centuries, historians and eschatologists have been unable to correlate the whole chapter of Daniel 11 with historical events under the Greek period of Daniel's visions.

And by any reading of it, the chapter certainly seems to start out describing the Greek period. And because it is so difficult to correlate the whole chapter with historical events, it has largely been assumed, even since the earliest days of Christianity, that at some point in the chapter, Daniel had stopped speaking about a Greek antagonist and shifted his focus forward to the next empire and started speaking of the little horn of Daniel 7 again.

The latter assumption has been the foundation of a great deal of eschatological literature. We covered some of it in our episodes. And this goes back to the earliest days of Christianity. And it is a very problematic assumption.

First, Daniel at no point in the narrative of Daniel 11 ever even hints that he has shifted his frame of reference to start talking about the little horn of Daniel 7 again or about a distant future antagonist outside of the Greek context.

And second, if we simply blend the attributes of the antagonist of Daniel 11 with the attributes of the little horn of Daniel 7 and assume that they're both talking about Antichrist, we'll be on the lookout for an Antichrist figure who Daniel did not prophesy and in fact will never exist.

And therefore, we will miss the identity of the real Antichrist of prophecy. So that is why we've spent four episodes just on Daniel chapter 11. Not because we expected to find Antichrist described for us there, but precisely because we do not expect to find him there.

What we've been able to show is that Daniel 11 describes events that have all occurred in history and were completely fulfilled in the century before Christ was born. And all of this took place before Rome even rose up as an empire.

As it turns out, Daniel 11 started by describing the final kings of the Medo-Persian Empire. Then, at verse 3, started describing the rise of Alexander the Great and the four-way division of his empire.

And then depicts, for the most part, the wars between the Seleucids and the Ptolemies of Egypt and how Jerusalem ended up getting caught up in the wars between them in what history has recorded for us as the Syrian Wars.

The chapter then describes the final conflict between Roman General Pompey and the pirates of Pamphylia, which set the stage for Rome's rise to the global stage as the fourth world empire of Daniel's visions.

So, in the process of our examination of Daniel 11, we have showed four critical matters in the understanding of Daniel 11, several of which overturn some traditional assumptions that have been used to interpret the chapter.

We believe that you can't really understand the chapter if you're bringing assumptions with you into the text. We'll just walk through four of these critical matters and what we've been able to do in our analysis of the chapter.

First, the division between north and south in Daniel 11 is not the Mediterranean Sea or the border between Syria and Egypt as has been traditionally assumed. Rather, the border between north and south is the Taurus Mountains that run along the southern coastline of Asia Minor, or modern-day Turkey.

And in fact, the Ptolemies, who are typically associated with Egypt to the south, also controlled the entire southern coast of Asia Minor during the critical period when Alexander's empire was divided four ways.

That's important to us because the boundaries between the four different kingdoms of Alexander's empire are only known to us in the fulfillment of prophecy, and so we have to be able to find out how Alexander's empire was divided so we can truly understand this conflict between the north and the south.

And what we found in our analysis was in fact the Taurus Mountains that run along the southern coast of Asia Minor were the boundary between north and south, and the southern kingdom at the four-way division of the empire controlled the southern coast of Asia Minor.

The second matter is that the Seleuces were in fact the eastern kingdom in the original division of the empire. But by the time Daniel starts to prophesy about the king of the north and the king of the south in Daniel 11 -5, he's describing the period after the Battle of Choropedium in 281 BC, which is to say that he starts to speak of the Seleucids only after they'd conquered the northern territory.

And therefore, by the time Daniel starts talking about them, they truly had become the king of the north. Not because Daniel had shifted his frame of reference to Jerusalem, where Syria is to the north and Egypt is to the south, but because Daniel's frame of reference actually remained fixed.

And north, in Daniel's frame of reference, had always referred to Asia Minor, north of the Taurus Mountains, and the territory of Thrace in Europe. So, by the time Daniel starts talking about the Seleucids as king of the north, it's because they truly had become king of the north, occupying the northern territory.

Now, the third matter is that in Daniel 11 -18 is depicted for us the defeat of the Seleucid king Antiochus III at the Battle of Magnesia in 190 BC. Under the term of surrender at the Treaty of Apamea in 188 BC, the Seleucids had to pay an annual war tribute to Rome, their navy was drastically reduced, their war elephants were destroyed, and the king's son, Antiochus IV, was sent as a hostage to Rome to ensure the peace.

Importantly, from this point forward in the narrative, the Seleucid line is never again called king of the north, because they have, in fact, been kicked out of the northern kingdom. That's an important matter to be identified in the chapter, and it helps us understand what Daniel is actually saying.

And this gets to our fourth matter that we wanted to make sure that we understood in our analysis of Daniel 11. We conclude from this that because the Seleucids are called king of the north while they occupy the northern territory, and they stop being called king of the north after they get kicked out of the northern territory, we conclude that the title king of the north goes with the territory and not with any particular dynasty, and thus the title belongs to whomever happens to rule the northern territory.

And as we showed, by the time we get to Daniel 11, 40 -45, the last six verses of the chapter, the Roman Republic is safely in control of the northern territory, and in fact the pirates of Pamphylia are now established along the southern coast of Asia Minor.

With that in mind, we saw unfolding before us in the last six verses of Daniel, Daniel 11, a description of the final battle between General Pompey, representing the northern kingdom, and the pirates of Pamphylia, representing the southern kingdom, and those pirates almost snuffed out the Roman Republic before it ever had a chance to rise to the global stage as an empire.

In his conquest, Pompey defeated not only the pirates, but also defeated Mithridates to the north and Tigranes to the east, and that set the stage for the Roman Republic to rise to power as the next empire of Daniel's visions.

That completed our analysis of Daniel chapter 11. At least, as we mentioned last week, the book ends from the beginning, which shows the Seleucids as kings of the north, and the end, which prophesied the conflict between General Pompey and the pirates of Pamphylia in the last six verses.

The reason we spent so much time establishing the fulfillment of the prophecies of Daniel 11 through verse 18, and then Daniel 11, 40 to 45, was to show that these prophecies have already been fulfilled and are confirmed in the historical record, and therefore the period between them, that is from Daniel 11, 19 to 39, has already been fulfilled too.

And that's a critical section of the passage because of the contents of that period between Daniel 11, 19 to 39. As we mentioned in episode 6, Daniel 11, in those verses from 19 to 39, deals with the Seleucid kingdom after they've been kicked out of the northern territory, and it's mostly about Antiochus IV.

And because Daniel 11, 29 to 31, deals with Antiochus IV, putting an end to Levitical sacrifices and placing the abomination of desolation in the temple, we have to address the fact that Jesus refers to the abomination of desolation as a future event.

So we are investing a lot of time showing that the abomination of desolation really did occur in the Greek Empire and really was placed in the temple by Antiochus IV in 167 BC. By focusing on this, it establishes the identity of the abomination of desolation, which makes it possible for us to understand Jesus' prophecy in Matthew 24, 15 and Mark 13, 14, in which he warned that soon after his death and resurrection, the abomination foretold by Daniel would stand again on holy ground.

We will be able to understand what Jesus is saying as long as we understand what that abomination of desolation is. So we have shown that Daniel 11 shows the abomination of desolation occurring under the Greek Empire.

Today we are going to spend time looking at the abomination of desolation as depicted in Daniel chapter 8, because Daniel 8 also places this in the Greek period under the reign of Antiochus IV. And we need to exhaust all of the biblical literature on the abomination of desolation so that we can understand what Jesus was talking about.

This is again what we call the Danielic imperative. Jesus tells us in Matthew and Mark, let the reader take note, or let the reader understand. He is directing us to the prophecies of Daniel that were written down.

He was not talking about what would eventually be written in the Gospels. He is talking about what he himself and everyone else had access to at that time, which was the scriptures of Daniel that spoke of the abomination of desolation.

So this is why we started by talking about Daniel chapter 7 and the little horn, taking three of the thirteen dioceses of the Roman Empire, and we have ended up in Daniel chapter 11 to show that the antagonists that are depicted in Daniel chapter 11 are not to be confused with Antichrist, and in fact they must be placed in the correct historical context, all of which occurred before Christ was even born.

And that's why we want to now turn to Daniel chapter 8 to see how Daniel chapter 8 depicts for us this same period and the same events all occurring under the period of Greek rule. So there's our introduction for this week.

It's a little bit repetitive, and I do understand that it is a tremendous amount of information, but I don't want the listeners to lose track of why we're focusing so much on Daniel in the first place.

So I hope that makes sense to him, and I'm ready to dive into Daniel chapter 8 with that brief introduction. So are we ready to go?

Yeah, I think the summary is really, really helpful because it ties everything together and it reminds us of what we've gone over because this is very intense, and I am really looking forward to what you're going to be talking about in Daniel chapter 8.

Daniel 8, the Medo-Persian Ram, and the Greek Goat

Okay, well, then let's jump into Daniel chapter 8. What's great about Daniel chapter 8 is that, just like in Daniel chapter 7, Daniel sees a vision, and then the vision is interpreted for him. Whereas in Daniel chapter 11, Daniel watches history unfold, and he simply records it for us.

But in Daniel chapter 8, Daniel sees the vision, and the angel Gabriel explains to him what it means, and we get some really good information from Daniel's observations and from Gabriel's interpretation.

So Daniel 8 is going to be very interesting to us for at least three reasons. There's a lot of other reasons, but the three main ones today is that, one, it depicts the four-way division of Alexander's empire, showing us definitively that Daniel was describing the Greek period.

So here we have, again, a situation where Daniel is describing what is very obviously a Greek period in prophecy, and then describes events that are contemporaneous with the abomination of desolation that we saw in Daniel chapter 11.

And that's the second reason this is so interesting. It describes the transgression of desolation in that same time frame as we've been discussing that occurred in the same verses that we discussed last week in Daniel chapter 11, that is, from Daniel 11, 29 to 31, occurring under a Greek period under Antiochus IV, and that's the same period we're discussing here.

And the third reason is that it includes a very interesting conversation between the angels who are narrating Daniel's visions to him. And this is very important to us because in chapter 12, there's a very similar conversation that takes place as the angels who have, until this point, served as Daniel's narrators, ask questions back and forth, and it appears that Jesus answers their questions for them from between the banks of the river.

And we're going to discover the significance of those conversations this week and next, but we're going to focus mainly on the first two items this week and just walk through Daniel's prophecies about Antiochus IV in Daniel chapter 8.

So for now, let's walk through Daniel chapter 8, which is comparatively easy because the angel Gabriel explains it to us after Daniel sees the vision. So we're going to read Daniel's observation, and then we're going to skip forward to where the angel interprets that part of the vision for him.

So with that in mind, let's proceed with Daniel chapter 8, verses 1 to 4. In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar, a vision appeared unto me, even unto me Daniel, after that which appeared unto me of the first.

And I saw in a vision, and it came to pass,.

When I saw,.

That I was at Shushan in the palace, which is in the province of Elam. And I saw in a vision, and I was by the river of Uli. Then I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns, and the two horns were high, but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last.

I saw the ram pushing westward and northward and southward, so that no beast might stand before him. Neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand. And he did according to his will, and became great.

Okay, so that's the first four verses of Daniel 8. And it is simply a description of the Medo-Persian Empire prior to Alexander the Great. And this is Gabriel's interpretation, simply confirming that we're talking about the Medo-Persian Empire.

Here in Daniel 8 .15 it says,. And it came to pass, when I, even I Daniel, had seen the vision, and sought for the meaning, then, behold, there stood before me as the appearance of a man. And I heard a man's voice between the banks of Uli, which called and said, Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision.

So he came near where I stood, and when he came I was afraid and fell upon my face. But he said unto me, Understand, O son of man, for at the time of the end shall be the vision. Now, as he was speaking to me, I was in a deep sleep, on my face, toward the ground.

But he touched me, and set me upright. And he said, Behold, I will make thee know what shall be in the last end of the indignation. For at the time appointed shall the end be. The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia.

So that's the confirmation from Gabriel, explaining that Daniel has seen the period of the Medo-Persian dominance just before Alexander's Empire came to power. What I want to note here is the same thing I noted last week,.

And that is,.

That he said that he were to understand Daniel for the vision relates to the time of the end. That's Daniel 8 .17. And then, in Daniel 8 .19, he confirms that what he means is that I will make thee know what shall be in the last end of the indignation.

For at the time appointed the end shall be. The time of the end does not refer necessarily to the end times at the very, very end of time, but rather simply to the end of the indignation. And we're going to spend some time in a future episode,.

In fact,.

Within the next few episodes, talking about what does Gabriel mean when he talks about the end of the indignation. For the time being, we're not going to focus on the end of the indignation, but rather to show that we are in fact discussing something that occurs after the Medo-Persian Empire and under the period.

Of Greek rule.

And Daniel's visions. So, chronologically, we're pretty much where we were in Daniel 10 through Daniel 11, verse 2, and that is during the Medo-Persian Empire, just as Alexander the Great is about to rise, and the angel Gabriel confirms this for Daniel, and therefore for us.

The next part of Daniel's vision is about the rise of Alexander's kingdom and its four-way division.

After his death.

So let's return to Daniel 8 and pick up at verse 5, and we're reading through verse 8. And as I was considering, behold, and he goat, came from the west on the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground.

And the goat had a notable horn between his eyes. And he came to the ram that had two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, and ran unto him in the fury of his power. And I saw him come close to the ram, and he was moved with cola against him, and smote the ram, and break his two horns.

And there was no power.

In the ram.

To stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground and stamped upon him, and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand. Therefore the he goat waxed very great, and when he was strong, the great horn was broken.

And for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven. That, of course, is the four-way division of Alexander's empire, and this is how Gabriel explains it to him in Daniel 8 verses 21 to 22.

This is Gabriel's explanation of what Daniel has just seen. And the rough goat is the king of Grecia, and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king. Now that being broken, whereas four stood up for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of that nation, but not in his power.

So there's Gabriel's interpretation.

Of the vision.

That Daniel has seen. So here Gabriel discusses the four-way division of Alexander's empire. By way of reminder, Alexander conquered the Medo-Persian empire in 334 B .C. and died in 323 B .C. His kingdom was eventually divided four ways.

Lysimachus took the northern territory, which is Asia Minor, within the Taurus Mountains plus the race in Europe. Ptolemy took the southern territory of Egypt plus the entire southern coast of Asia Minor, south of the Taurus Mountains.

Seleucus took the eastern kingdom from Syria to Babylon and all the way to India. And Demetrius, son of Antigonus, and his sons took the western kingdom in Macedonia. That ended up being the four-way division of the empire after the fall of Alexander.

None of those four kingdoms achieved the same power of Alexander, even though they all tried. And that is why there were all the subsequent wars between them afterward. After several generations of Seleucid kings, one in particular comes to power.

And this is where Daniel chapter 8 starts to describe our antagonist, the antagonist we're discussing, which is Antiochus IV. So, let's pick up with Daniel 8 verses 9 to 12. And this is where Daniel is describing for us the vision of the horn, the little horn, of Daniel 8 that comes up out of one of the four horns that came up after Alexander died.

So, okay.

So, Daniel,.

Starting in Daniel 8, 9,. And out of one of them, and I'm going to say parenthetically, that is out of one of the four horns, came forth a little horn which waxed exceeding great toward the south and toward the east and toward the pleasant land.

And it waxed great even to the host of heaven, and it cast down some of the hosts and of the stars to the ground and stamped upon them. Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host. And by him the daily sacrifice was taken away and the place of his sanctuary was cast down.

And then host was given to him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression. And it cast down the truth to the ground and it practiced and prospered. So, that's Daniel 8 verses 9 to 12.

And now,.

Here is Gabriel's interpretation.

Of those verses.

Daniel 8, 23 to 25. And in the latter time of their kingdom and I'm going to say parenthetically that is of the Seleucid line. When the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance and understanding dark sentences shall stand up.

And his power shall be mighty but not by his own power. And he shall destroy.

Wonderfully.

And shall prosper.

And practice.

And shall destroy the mighty and the holy people. And through his policy he shall also cause craft to prosper in his hand and he shall magnify himself in his heart and by peace shall destroy many. He shall also stand up against the prince of princes but he shall be broken without hand.

Now,.

We're going to talk about.

The meaning.

Of that section. I'll simply point out.

Here though.

In the King James prince of princes is capitalized because the translators assume that it is referring to Jesus but we're going to talk about how that actually refers to actually the high priest. And we'll get to that in just a few minutes.

But as we already talked last week this section describes Antiochus IV's.

Ambitions.

Toward the east and toward the south. We talked about how his ambition was directed.

Toward Egypt.

Which is the south toward Persia and the Arabian Gulf which is toward the east and toward the pleasant land which of course.

Is Jerusalem.

We also talked last week about how Antiochus IV made the daily sacrifices.

Illegal.

Trampled the sanctuary and erected.

The abomination.

Of desolation. So for now we're going to focus on the personality and attributes of Antiochus IV and how he magnified himself above the prince of the host as Daniel describes him.

And as.

Stood up against the prince of princes as Gabriel.

Interprets that.

Let's start with Gabriel's description of a king of fierce countenance and understanding dark sentences. The description.

Carries with it.

The connotation of genius grasping complex ideas and being able to grapple with difficult riddles puzzles and enigmas as is shown in 2 Chronicles 9 .1 Psalms 49 .4 78 .2.

And.

Proverbs 1 .6 so the idea of dark sentences just means that this is a man.

With.

Some intellectual means and we'll discover what that means as we go forward.

What we know.

Of Antiochus IV is that he behaved as an erratic man of diabolical genius. He took the title Epiphanies.

Which means.

This manifestation of God.

Basically.

But his contemporaries.

Called him Epiphanies.

Which.

Basically is.

Just a turn of phrase.

Meaning.

The mad man. This is from Polybius Histories Fragments of book 26 chapter 1 verse 1. So the point here.

Is that yes.

He was.

A diabolical genius but he called himself Epiphanies Antiochus IV.

Epiphanies.

And his contemporaries made fun of him on that ground.

Calling him Epiphanies he would.

Excuse himself.

From court.

And only to be found at the silversmiths and goldsmiths workshops.

Holding forth.

At length.

And discussing.

Technical matters with the molders and other craftsmen.

That's from.

Polybius Histories Fragments of book 26. This is a man.

Who.

For whom.