Feast Day of the Holy Maccabees

ExecutedToday.com ^ | August 1st, 2010 | Feast Day of the Holy Maccabees

[CheshireTheCat]

This is the feast date, in both the Orthodox and Catholic traditions, of the Woman with Seven Sons — each of whom is supposed to have been put to death for refusing to break the Mosaic law by eating pork.

Although they are Jewish martyrs more than a century before Christ, they are revered most especially by the Christian faith that elbowed Judaism aside. Their story comes from 2 Maccabees, a “deuterocanonical” text that is part of the Old Testament but not part of the Hebrew Bible — for reasons having to do with the contingent process of formulating the canon.* (Short explanation | Long explanation)

Whether sent from the Lord or not, this story features the righteous resistance of the faithful family against Antiochus IV Epiphanes, ruler of the Seleucid Empire, which was one of the successor Hellenistic states to Alexander the Great’s conquests.

In 2 Maccabees (and also in 1 Maccabees, which covers the same period, though not this specific martyrdom), Antiochus IV is making an unwelcome pro-heathen intervention in a Jewish civil war on the side of the hellenizers as against the hidebound traditionalists. This comes to attempting “to compel the Jews to depart from the laws of their fathers, and not to live after the laws of God: And to pollute also the temple in Jerusalem, and to call it the temple of Jupiter Olympius.” (2 Maccabees 6:1-2; this chapter features a Whitman’s sampler of other faithful traditionalists slaughtered for various forms of adherence to the Law.)...

[CharlesOConnell]

Now when they that were with Gorgias had fought long & were wearie, Iudas called vpon the Lord that he would shew himselfe to be their helper, and leader of the battell. 37 And with that he beganne in his owne language, & sung Psalmes with a lowd voyce, & rushing vnawares vpon Gorgias men, he put them to flight.
38 So Iudas gathered his host, and came into the city of Odollam. And when the seuenth day came, they purified themselues (as the custome was) and kept the Sabbath in the same place. 39 And vpon the day following as the vse had bene, Iudas and his company came to take vp the bodies of them that were slaine, and to bury them with their kinsmen, in their fathers graues.
40 Now vnder the coats of euery one that was slaine, they found things consecrated to the idoles of the Iamnites, which is forbidden the Iewes by the Law. Then euery man saw that this was þe cause wherefore they were slaine. 41 All men therefore praising the Lord the righteous Iudge, who had opened the things that were hid,
42 Betooke themselues vnto praier, and besought him that the sinne committed, might wholy bee put out of remembrance. Besides, that noble Iudas exhorted the people to keep themselues from sinne, forsomuch as they saw before their eyes the things that came to passe, for the sinne of those þt were slaine.
43 And when he had made a gathering throughout the company, to the sum of two thousand drachmes of siluer, hee sent it to Ierusalem to offer a sinne offering, doing therein very well, and honestly, in that he was mindfull of the resurrection.
44 (For if he had not hoped that they that were slaine should haue risen againe, it had bin superfluous and vaine, to pray for the dead.)
45 And also in that he perceiued that there was great fauour layed vp for those that died godly. (It was an holy, and good thought) wherupon he made a reconciliation for the dead, that they might be deliuered from sinne.
– Second Maccabees 12:36-45, The King James version (KJV), 1611

For other foundation can no man lay, then that is laide, which is Iesus Christ.
12 Now if any man build vpon this foundation, gold, siluer, preciousstones, wood, hay, stubble:
13 Euery mans worke shall be made manifest. For the day shall declare it, because it shall bee reuealed by fire, and the fire shall trie euery mans worke of what sort it is.
14 If any mans worke abide which he hath built thereupon, he shal receiue a reward.
15 If any mans worke shall bee burnt, he shall suffer losse: but he himselfe shall be saued: yet so, as by fire.
– First Corinthians 3:11-15, KJV 1611

[CharlesOConnell]

Judas Maccabaeus sending 2,000 Drachmas to Jerusalem for Prayers for the Dead – Victor Wolfvoet II after Peter Paul Rubens (2nd Maccabees 12:36-45)

[MDLION]

These martyrs for some reason make me think of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste though those martyrs were frozen to death.

[left that other site]

So glad you are feeling better. You have been in my prayers.