the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Encyclopedias
Manlius
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
or the name of one of the ambassadors who is said to have written a letter to the Jews confirming whatever concession Lysias had granted them. Four letters were written to the Jews, of which the last is from "Quintus Memmius and Titus Manlius (Gr. Τίτος Μάνλιος , v. r. Μάνιος; Vulg. Titus Manilius), ambassadors (πρεσβῦται) of the Romans" (2 Maccabees 11:34). There is not much doubt that the letter is a fabrication, as history is entirely ignorant of these names. Polybius (Reliq. 31:9, 6), indeed, mentions C. Sulpitius and Manius Sergius, who were sent to Antiochus IV Epiphanes about B.C. 163, an also (Relig. 31:12, 9) Cn. Octavius, Spurius Lucretius, and L. Aurelius, who were sent into Syria in B.C. 162 in consequence of the contention fir the guardianship of the young king Antiochus V Eupator, but entirely ignores Q. Memmius or T. Manlius. We may therefore conclude that legates of these names were never in Syria. The true name of T. Manlius may be T. Manius, and as there is not sufficient time for an embassy to have been sent to Syria between the two recorded by Polybius, the writer may have been thinking of the former. The letter is dated in the 148th year of the Seleucidan sera (= B.C. 165), and in this year there was a consul of the name of T. Macnlius Torquatus, who appears to have been sent on an embassy to Egypt about B.C. 164, to mediate between the two Ptolemies, Philometor and Euergetes (Livy, 43:11; Polybius, Relig. 32:1, 2). The employment of this Seleucidan aera as a date, the absence of the name of the city, and especially the fact that the first intercourse of the Jews and Romans did not take place till two years later, when Judas heard of the fame of the Romans (1 Maccabees 8, I sq.), all prove that the document is far from authentic.
The three other letters do not merit serious attention (2 Maccabees 11:16-33). See Wernsdorff, Defid. Libr. Maccab. sec. 66; Grimm, Exeg. Handbuch, ad loc., and on the other side, Patritius, De Cons. Maccabees p. 142, 280.
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McClintock, John. Strong, James. Entry for 'Manlius'. Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/tce/m/manlius.html. Harper & Brothers. New York. 1870.
