Antiochus Epiphanes (215–163 B.C.) was the Seleucid king who attempted to turn Palestine into a Hellenistic Gentile province by forbidding the Jews to practice circumcision or to live under the tenets of the Mosaic law. He even erected a pagan altar in the temple in Jerusalem. However, his actions sparked the successful Maccabean revolt.
In this manner, too, Antiochus Epiphanes, the king of Syria, the descendant of Alexander of Macedonia, devised measures against the Jews. . . . And if one desires to inquire into it more accurately, he will find it recorded in the books of the Maccabees. Hippolytus (c. 200, W), 5.214.
Antiochus arose, surnamed Epiphanes, who was of the line of Alexander. And after he had reigned in Syria, and brought under him all of Egypt, he went up to Jerusalem and entered the sanctuary. He seized all the treasures in the house of the Lord—including the golden candlesticks, the table, and the altar. And he made a great slaughter in the land. Even as it was written: “And the sanctuary will be trodden under foot, unto evening and unto morning, a thousand and three hundred days.” For it happened that the sanctuary remained desolate during that period . . . until Judas Maccabeus arose after the death of his father, Matthias. Hippolytus (c. 205, W), 5.180.