Catholic Commentary
The Rise and Fall of Alexander the Great (Part 1)
1After Alexander the Macedonian, the son of Philip, who came out of the land of Chittim, and struck Darius king of the Persians and Medes, it came to pass, after he had struck him, that he reigned in his place, in former time, over Greece.2He fought many battles, won many strongholds, killed the kings of the earth,3went through to the ends of the earth, and took spoils of a multitude of nations. The earth was quiet before him. He was exalted. His heart was lifted up.4He gathered together an exceedingly strong army and ruled over countries, nations, and principalities, and they paid him tribute.5After these things he fell sick, and perceived that he was going to die.6He called his honorable servants, which had been brought up with him from his youth, and he divided to them his kingdom while he was still alive.7Alexander reigned twelve years, then he died.8Then his servants ruled, each one in his place.
1 Maccabees 1:1–8 describes Alexander the Great's conquest of the Persian empire and his rapid rise to supreme power, followed by his sudden illness and death at age thirty-two, after which his kingdom fragmentarily divides among his generals. The passage presents Alexander's conquests without divine sanction and his moral pride as indicators of hubris destined to collapse, establishing the historical and theological backdrop for the Seleucid oppression of the Jewish people.
Alexander conquered the world and ruled for twelve years; then he died, and his empire shattered into pieces—a warning that no human power, however vast, escapes the logic of mortality.
Commentary
1 Maccabees 1:1 — "Alexander the Macedonian, the son of Philip, who came out of the land of Chittim" The book opens with deliberate historical grounding, unusual for an Old Testament narrative, situating the reader in datable, verifiable history. "Chittim" is a Hebrew term (cf. Num 24:24; Dan 11:30) that in earlier biblical usage referred to Cyprus or the Mediterranean coastlands, but by the Hellenistic period had come to denote Macedonia or the western Greek world more broadly. The author wastes no words: Alexander's lineage (son of Philip II) and his pivotal defeat of Darius III of Persia (at battles like Issus in 333 BC and Gaugamela in 331 BC) are presented not as world-historical triumph but as the engine of catastrophe that will eventually engulf the Jewish people. The phrase "reigned in his place, in former time, over Greece" anchors the narrative chronologically while subtly suggesting that Alexander's power was derivative — he took another man's throne.
1 Maccabees 1:2 — "He fought many battles, won many strongholds, killed the kings of the earth" The language here echoes biblical descriptions of divinely-sanctioned conquerors (cf. Ps 2:8–9; Dan 7–8), but the absence of any mention of God is conspicuous and deliberate. Unlike the conquests of Joshua or David, Alexander's victories are presented without divine blessing or sanction. The phrase "killed the kings of the earth" — an almost apocalyptic-sounding claim — foreshadows the imagery of Daniel 8, where Alexander appears as the "he-goat" who crushes the ram (Persia) with terrifying speed.
1 Maccabees 1:3 — "The earth was quiet before him. He was exalted. His heart was lifted up." This verse is the theological crux of the prologue. The phrase "his heart was lifted up" is a direct allusion to the biblical language of pride (Hebrew gābah lēb; cf. Ezek 28:2, 5, 17; Deut 8:14; Dan 5:20). It is not a neutral observation about Alexander's confidence — it is a moral verdict. The "lifting up" of the heart in Scripture consistently signals the sin of hubris that precedes a fall (cf. Prov 16:18). That the earth was "quiet before him" recalls the language used for divinely granted peace (cf. Josh 11:23), yet here it is peace achieved through terror and domination, not covenant faithfulness.
Verses 4–5 — Gathering strength, then falling sick The juxtaposition is swift and brutal: one verse catalogs Alexander's unparalleled power — army, countries, nations, principalities, tribute — and the very next verse reports that "he fell sick, and perceived that he was going to die." The rhetorical effect is a vanitas vanitatum moment (cf. Eccl 1:2; 2:18–19) — all the acquisition of the world cannot forestall death. The author offers no military or political explanation for his illness; the collapse of the mightiest empire the world had yet seen is simply attributed to sickness, underscoring the radical contingency of human power.
Verses 6–7 — The division of the kingdom Alexander's dying act — dividing his kingdom among servants "while he was still alive" — is both historically accurate (referring to the Diadochi, the successor generals: Ptolemy, Seleucus, Cassander, etc.) and theologically loaded. The kingdom built by one man's will cannot be held together; it splinters at the moment of his death. That these are "servants… brought up with him from his youth" makes the fragmentation more poignant: the empire was as personal as it was political, and both dissolve together. The author notes Alexander "reigned twelve years" — a precise figure (336–323 BC) that emphasizes the brevity of even the most spectacular human reign.
1 Maccabees 1:8 — "Then his servants ruled, each one in his place." This closing line is quietly devastating. The singular conqueror who strode "to the ends of the earth" is replaced by a committee of ambitious generals. The singular becomes plural; the unified becomes fractured. Typologically, this fragmented succession sets the stage for the Seleucid dynasty — the particular branch of Alexander's legacy that will produce Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the book's great villain. The seeds of Israel's suffering are planted in these eight verses.
Catholic Commentary
Catholic tradition reads this passage through the lens of a profound theology of history: God alone is Lord of history, and the rise and fall of empires are ordered — even when those empires are pagan and hostile — to the unfolding of his providential design. St. Augustine, in The City of God (Book V, chapters 12–13), directly addresses the Roman empire's rise as analogous to what we see here: God permits great earthly power not as a reward for virtue but to accomplish purposes that transcend the powerful. The same lens applies to Alexander: his conquests spread the Greek language (koinē Greek) across the ancient world, which the Church Fathers recognized as providentially preparing the soil for the New Testament proclamation. Origen and Eusebius both noted that the Pax Romana — itself the inheritor of Alexander's Hellenistic world order — created the cultural and linguistic conditions for the Gospel's rapid spread.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (§303) teaches that "God's providence makes use of human agents… even wicked ones." Alexander's pride and ambition, morally condemned by the text's subtle language, are nonetheless instruments of a history that will lead, through suffering and fidelity, to salvation.
The verse's language of "his heart was lifted up" (v. 3) resonates with the Catholic theological tradition on pride as the radix omnium vitiorum — the root of all vices, as catalogued by St. Gregory the Great in his Moralia in Job. The swift divine reversal — power to illness to death in three verses — embodies what Aquinas calls the ordo iustitiae: the ordering of justice in which God does not destroy human pride directly but allows it to exhaust itself. The passage thus functions as a meditation on the First Commandment: no human sovereign can occupy the place of God.
For Today
In an age saturated by the mythology of human achievement — of CEOs celebrated as visionaries, of political leaders promising to reshape civilizations, of technological progress framed as the solution to death itself — 1 Maccabees 1:1–8 is bracingly counter-cultural. The passage invites contemporary Catholics to practice what tradition calls memento mori: the disciplined remembrance of mortality as a spiritual corrective to pride.
Concretely, this means asking ourselves where we are tempted to locate ultimate security — in institutional power, personal achievement, financial stability, or national greatness. Alexander gathered armies, nations, and tribute; he still died after twelve years. The Catholic is called to hold all earthly goods loosely, not because they are evil, but because, as the Catechism reminds us (§1001), our ultimate horizon is resurrection, not conquest.
This passage is also a caution against the idolization of powerful personalities — political, ecclesiastical, or cultural. When a leader's "heart is lifted up," history shows that those who depend on them are left vulnerable. The faithful Catholic anchors hope not in any human successor but in Christ, whose kingdom alone does not fragment at death.
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