From: 1 Maccabees 1:10-15, 41-43, 54-57, 62-63
Alexander the Great and His Successors (Continuation)
[10] From them (the descendants of Alexander the Great's officers)
came forth a sinful root, Antiochus Epiphanes, son of Antiochus the
king; he hadbeen a hostage in Rome. He began to reign in the one
hundred and thirty-seventh year of the kingdom of the Greeks.
Many Jews are Led Astray
[11] In those days lawless men came forth from Israel, and misled
many, saying, “Let us go and make a covenant with the Gentiles round
about us, for since we separated from them many evils have come upon
us.” [12] This proposal pleased them, [13] and some of the people
eagerly went to the king. He authorized them to observe the ordinances
of the Gentiles. [14] So they built a gymnasium in Jerusalem,
according to Gentile custom, [15] and removed the marks of
circumcision, and abandoned the holy covenant. They joined with the
Gentiles and sold themselves to do evil.
Observance of the Law is Proscribed
[41] Then the king wrote to his whole kingdom that all should be one
people, [42] and that each should give up his customs. [43] All the
Gentiles accepted the command of the king. Many even from Israel
gladly adopted his religion; they sacrificed to idols and profaned the sabbath.
The Temple Profaned, the Books of the Law Set on Fire. Religious Persecution
[54] Now on the fifteenth day of Chislev, in the one hundred and
forty-fifth year, they erected a desolating sacrilege upon the altar
of burnt offering. They also built altars in the surrounding cities of
Judah, [55] and burned incense at the doors of the houses and in the
streets. [56] The books of the law which they found they tore to
pieces and burned with fire. [57] Where the book of the covenant was
found in the possession of any one, or if any one adhered to the law,
the decree of the king condemned him to death.
[62] But many in Israel stood firm and were resolved in their hearts
not to eat unclean food. [63] They chose to die rather than to be
defiled by food or to profane the holy covenant; and they did die.
Commentary:
1:1-64 Greek domination was a terrible trial for the Jewish people.
During the Greek period they stayed loyal to the Covenant that God
made with the patriarchs, defending it against the Greek religion and
culture which were imposed on the East as a result of Alexander the
Great’s conquests. Pagan customs were introduced into Jerusalem and
Judah, firstly, through the infidelity of many Jews who were attracted
by the novelty and splendor of Hellenistic culture, and, secondly,
because Antiochus Epiphanes tried to weld his territories
together politically by imposing Greek civilization and religion. To
do this in Judea he attacked the three pillars of the Jewish
religion--the temple of Jerusalem; religious customs, particularly
circumcision and the sabbath observance; and the books of the Law of
Moses. It seemed inevitable that Judaism would disappear or else be
merged with the Greek world, as happened in other Eastern nations
influenced by Hellenism. But, in fact, Israel kept its religious
identity thanks to a special providence of God; this enabled it to
continue to be the chosen people from whom would be born the Messiah,
Jesus Christ. That is the message of the books of the Maccabees, a
message perceived by Church tradition when it acknowledged them as
being part of Holy Scripture. When speaking about these books, St
Augustine was well aware that the Jews did not regard them as being on
the same level as the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms, “but they
[these books] will not have been received by the Church in vain if
they are read or listened to calmly, and especially those parts that
deal with the Maccabees themselves who, for the sake of God’s Law,
were true martyrs and suffered terrible and humiliating things” (St Augustine,
"Contra Gaudentium", 1, 31, 38).
1:1-10. “The land of Kittim” (in Greek, "khettim"), originally
referred to the island of Cyprus, but it also applied to Greece and
Macedonia. Alexander the Great died in Babylonia in the year 323 BC.
His successors, called the Diadochi, fought among themselves over the
division of the empire. Ptolemy I gained control of Egypt, and founded
the dynasty of the Lagids. Seleucus, the first of the Seleucid kings,
took Babylon. To begin with, Palestine was part of the Ptolemy
domains, but in the year 197 BC, after the battle of Baniyas in which
Egypt was defeated, it came under the control of the Seleucids.
Antiochus IV Epiphanes, son of Antiochus III and brother of Seleucus
IV (cf. 2 Mac 4:7), had been sent to Rome by his father as a hostage
(in accordance with the treaty of Apamea, 188 Bc). The one hundred and
thirty-seventh year, counting from 312 BC when the Seleucid dynasty
was founded, was 175 BC.
1:11-15. Conforming to Greek ways was equivalent in that situation to
turning one’s back on the Lord and on the Covenant. Gymnasia were
presided over by Greek gods, and “becoming like the Gentiles” involved
disguising the signs of circumcision when taking part undressed in
gymnasium sports. Belonging to the people of God entailed a moral
lifestyle different from that of the Gentiles, just as being a member
of the Church, the new people of God, requires a person to avoid
practices and attitudes contrary to the natural law and Christian ethics.
Apropos of this, St Paul taught the first Christians: “We beseech and
exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you learned from us how you
ought to live and to please God, just as you are doing, you do so more
and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the
Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you
abstain from immorality; that each of you know how to control his own
body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like heathen
who do not know God” (1 Thess 4:1-5). “Reject the deception of those
who appease themselves with the pathetic cry of ‘Freedom! Freedom!’
Their cry often masks a tragic enslavement because choices that prefer
error do not liberate. Christ alone sets us free, for he alone is the
Way, the Truth and the Life" (St J. Escriva, "Friends of God", 26).
1:41-53. Up to this point the Jews have been governed by their own
laws, which were both religious and civil. In order to unify his
empire politically, Antiochus wants to impose a single form of
religious practice. Those Jews who had a liking for things Greek had
no difficulty in accepting the king’s laws: they were already
conforming to them, and now they became formal apostates of Judaism.
Other Jews, maybe majority, conformed out of fear. But there were
others still, whom the sacred writer sees as the true Israel (v. 53),
who were forced to go underground to stay loyal to their religion.
1:54-64. The author recalls with great sadness the exact day when an
altar, or perhaps a statue, dedicated to Zeus Olympus was erected in
the temple of Jerusalem--8 December 167 BC. The revulsion God-fearing
Jews felt towards that object can be seen from the name used to
describe it--”a desolating sacrifice” (“abominatio desolationis”, the
abomination of desolation: cf. Dan 9:27; 11:31; 12:11). ln Hebrew the
words used sound like the name of the “Baal of the heavens”, the
Canaanite idol which Israelites in ancient times found so attractive
and against which the prophets strove (cf. 1 Kings 18:20-40). But the
phrase also, literally, means something abominable which leads to
total perdition. It is, in the last analysis, a symbol of idolatrous
worship which seeks to impose itself by force on worship of the true
God. Our Lord Jesus Christ will use the very same expression,
“desolating sacrifice”, “abomination of desolation”, to announce the
tribulation which will overwhelm Jerusalem (as it indeed did when the
Romans destroyed it in 70 AD) and which will be a sign of the
tribulations that will happen at the end of time (cf. Mt 24:15-25 and par.).
The events narrated briefly here and the violence done to the Jews, as
also exemplary acts of fideIity,are reported in more detail in 2
Maccabees 6:1-11, 18, 31; 7:1-42. It was a very testing time for
Israel, a time of purging and purification. When God allows
persecution to happen, he does so to elicit fidelity: this is true for
Israel and later for the Church.
Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text
taken from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries
made by members of the Faculty of Theology of the University of
Navarre, Spain. Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock,
Co. Dublin, Ireland.