When he hath taken away the multitude, his heart shall be lifted up This is a description of the effect which this victory would have on Ptolemy, namely, to puff him up with pride and insolence: and so we are informed it did; for being freed by it from his fears, he now more freely indulged his lusts; and, after a few menaces and complaints, he granted peace to Antiochus, that he might be more at liberty to gratify his appetites and passions. He had before murdered his father, his mother, and his brother; and now he killed his wife, who was also his sister, and gave himself up entirely to the management of Agathoclea his harlot, and her brother, Agathocles, who was his catamite, and their equally vicious mother Oenanthe: and so, forgetful of the greatness of his name and majesty, he consumed his days in feasting, and his nights in lewdness, and became not only the spectator, but the master and leader of all wickedness. Alas! what availed it to have conquered his enemies, when he was thus overcome by his vices; he was so far from being strengthened by it, that even his own subjects, offended at his inglorious peace, and more inglorious life, rebelled against him.
After the retreat of Antiochus, Ptolemy visited the cities of Cœlosyria and Palestine, which had submitted to him; and, among others, in his progress, he came to Jerusalem, “where he took a view of the temple, and even offered sacrifices, &c., to the God of Israel. But, not being satisfied with viewing it only from the outer court, beyond which no Gentile was allowed to pass, he showed a great inclination to enter the sanctuary, and even the holy of holies itself. This occasioned a great uproar all over the city; the high-priest informed him of the holiness of the place, and the express law of God, by which he was forbid to enter it. But every sort of opposition only served to inflame his curiosity; he forced in as far as the second court, where, while he was preparing to enter the temple itself, he was struck by God with such terror, that he was carried off half dead. On this he left the city, highly exasperated against the whole Jewish nation, and loudly threatening future vengeance.” At his return, therefore, to Alexandria, he began a cruel persecution against the Jewish inhabitants of that city, and cast down many ten thousands; for it appears from Eusebius, that, about this time, forty thousand Jews, or, according to Jerome, sixty thousand, were slain. The loss of so many of his Jewish subjects, and the rebellion of the Egyptians, added to the mal-administration of the state, must certainly have very much weakened, and almost totally ruined his kingdom: see Bishop Newton, Wintle, and the Univ. Hist., vol. 9. p. 220.