1 The holy prophet, speaking in the person of the Jewish people, deplores that universal calamity that was inflicted on them by the gentiles, under king Antiochus, who was called Epiphanes. “O God, why hast thou cast us off,” us thy people, “to the end?” as if you were never more to care for or to regard us; “why is thy wrath enkindled,” is thy anger excited, “against the sheep of thy pasture?” against that people