Judas Maccabaeus

With this post, we finish the Old Testament great stories of the Bible. We tell about the Elected People’s meeting with the Greek culture, from the third century BC onwards; we are in the first Book of the Maccabees, chapter one and following. «It came to pass, after that 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 stead, in former time, over Greece. And he fought many battles, and won many strongholds, and killed the kings of the earth, and went through to the ends of the earth, and took spoils of a multitude of nations. And the earth was quiet before him, and he was exalted, and his heart was lifted up, and he gathered together an exceeding strong army, and ruled over countries and nations and principalities, and they became tributary to him. And after these things he fell sick, and perceived that he should die. And he called his servants, which were honorable, which had been brought up with him from his youth, and he divided to them his kingdom, while he was yet alive. And Alexander reigned twelve years, and he died. And his servants bare rule, each one in his place. And they did all put diadems upon themselves after that he was dead, and so did their sons after them many years: and they multiplied evils in the earth». One of them, Antiochus Epiphanes, decides to impose the Greek traditions on Judea with offerings to the idols, Sabbath profanation, prohibition to own and put in practice the book of the Law, invitation to eat prohibited food, prohibition to circumcise the sons. «In those days rose up Mattathias the son of John, the son of Simeon, a priest of the sons of Joarib, from Jerusalem; and he lived at Modin. And he had five sons, John, who was surnamed Gaddis; Simon, who was called Thassi; Judas, who was called Maccabaeus [“hammer”]; Eleazar, who was called Avaran; Jonathan, who was called Apphus».  They decide to rebel against the tyrant’s orders and go into the wilderness; around them gather all who «sought after justice and judgement». At his death Mattathias give the command of the rebels to Judas Maccabaeus, «strong and mighty from his youth».

 

 

The battles he fights are difficult, because the rebels are less powerful than the king’s army. However, he trusts in God with faith and prayer: «It is an easy thing for many to be shut up in the hands of a few; and with heaven it is all one, to save by many or by few:  for victory in battle stands not in the multitude of an army; but strength is from heaven. They come to us in fulness of insolence and lawlessness, to destroy us and our wives and our children, for to plunder us: but we fight for our lives and our laws. And he himself will discomfit them before our face: but as for you, be you not afraid of them». After many stunning victories in defense of his people against Antiochus and his successors, Judah gloriously dies in battle. His brother Jonathan replaces him and he is also author of great deeds, before being killed by a false friend. Simon then becomes the chief of the freedom fighters and he is able to obtain a certain independence for the Jewish people, «and the people saw the faith of Simon, and the glory which he thought to bring to his nation, and they made him their leader and high priest [...]: and in his days things prospered in his hands, so that the Gentiles were taken away out of their country, and they also that were in the city of David, those who were in Jerusalem, who had made themselves a citadel, out of which they issued, and polluted all things round about the sanctuary, and did great hurt to its purity; and he placed Jews therein, and fortified it for the safety of the country and the city, and made high the walls of Jerusalem: and king Demetrius confirmed to him the high priesthood according to these things, and made him one of his Friends, and honored him with great honor». There are other fights, but now the Hasmonean dynasty (which comes out of the Maccabean family) stabilizes its power in the region. It will stay there, forgetting the purity of its origins and corrupting more and more, until the Roman conquest of Jerusalem (63 BC). The Romans entrust the Judaic kingdom to their friend Herod the Great in 37 BC; in 7-6 BC in Bethlehem of Judea, under Herod’s reign, Jesus was born (the placement of the year 1 of the current era is wrong because of an error that occurred in the sixth century AD). Greek language has been crucial, since Alexander the Great’s conquests and until the first two centuries AD. As it happens today for English, it was the only way to understand each other outside national borders. Starting from the third century BC, the Old Testament was translated in Greek: I invite you to find and read the legend that tells the origin of the Septuagint (“Bible of the Seventy”). The Gospel (and all New Testament) original language is Greek; furthermore, Greek was the liturgical language of the early Christian communities.

I invite you to read even the second Book of the Maccabees, which tells a shorter story: from a little time before Antiochus Epiphanes to one of Judas Maccabaeus’ last battles. Its style is very scenic; it often cites apparitions and divine interventions and it writes about arguments that is difficult to find in other books of the Old Testament (for example: the resurrection of the dead, the punishment for evil men in the afterlife, the prayer for dead people’s sake, the martyrs’ reward, the saints’ intercession, see I libri dei Maccabei - Introduzione, La Bibbia di Gerusalemme, EDB 2003, 18th edition).