1 Maccabees 2, Numbers 25:7-9, Psalm 106: 26-28.
The first chapter of 1 Maccabees, which we considered in last episode, set the scene for us, and gave an overall picture of the atrocities suffered by the Jewish people under the oppression of the Seleucid king, Antiochus Epiphanes IV. Chapter two, which we will read in this episode, zooms into the life of a particularly significant family which had fled the terror to seek peace in the town of Modein (Modi’in), some fifteen miles from Jerusalem. But evil comes to them, and as a result, Mattathias, along with his sons, launch the national resistance against the pagan king’s violent measures to establish a single social household (an oikumenē) in his territory, by forcing all to follow the same vile customs and worship the same false gods. Let’s work through this exciting text, which I remind you all to read in full by yourselves.
The father of the family, Mattathias, is a faithful priest who has moved away from the Jerusalem Temple, now defiled, to practise the faith the best that he can with his sons, Gaddi, Simon (called Thassi, or the wise), Judas (called Maccabeus, or the hammer), Eleazar (called Avaran), and Jonathan (called Apphus). Simon and Judas will be crucial players soon, but for now their father has the stage. Though they are no longer in the thick of the storm, he laments, with them over the state of Jerusalem and Judea with these words, and also with the ritual action of tearing clothes and wearing sackcloth:
Alas! Why was I born to see this, the ruin of my people, the ruin of the holy city, and to live there when it was given over to the enemy,
the sanctuary given over to aliens?
Her temple has become like a person without honor;
her glorious vessels have been carried into exile.
Her infants have been killed in her streets, her youths by the sword of the foe.
What nation has not inherited her palaces and has not seized her spoils?
All her adornment has been taken away; no longer free, she has become a slave.
And see, our holy place, our beauty, and our glory have been laid waste;
the Gentiles have profasned them.
Why should we live any longer?
The centrality of Jerusalem and the Temple is so strong in Priest Mattathias’ mind that to have them profaned is to take away the whole purpose of living. God’s people have been enslaved by the Gentiles, and so her freedom and beauty are gone—not to mention the murders done to her innocents! The “glory” and “honor” of the Temple and the people have been removed, and so he weeps, along with his family. All too soon, the same circumstances that have enveloped Jerusalem and much of Judea assault Modein, bringing the challenge of faithfulness directly to the priest. Because of his status, those Gentiles who are enforcing social ecumenicism, the “wokeness” of that day, want to use him as a model of accomodation: “You are a leader, honored and great in this town, and supported by sons and brothers. Now be the first to come and do what the king commands, as all the Gentiles and the people of Judah and those that are left in Jerusalem have done. Then you and your sons will be numbered among the Friends of the king, and you and your sons will be honored with silver and gold and many gifts.”
If the emissaries of the king thought that bribery would have any effect, or the hope of being “friends of the king,” they were sorely mistaken. For Mattathias is a friend of God, and the wealth he cherishes is not anything that the king can give. The veiled threat, that is the reference “to those who are left in Jerusalem,” also has no effect on this man, who responds proudly, “Far be it from us to desert the Torah and the ordinances. We will not obey the king’s words by turning aside from our religion to the right hand or to the left.” He then puts his zeal into action when the first Jew in Modein capitulates by offering blasphemous gifts at the enemy altar—Mattathias executes the Jewish traitor along with the Gentile soldier who is supervising, and destroys the pagan altar. Our passage aptly likens his actions to those of the High Priest Phinehas, who turned aside the punitive plague sent by God upon the Hebrews in the wilderness who were both committing idolatry and sexual immorality with the Midianites (Numbers 25:7-9). Like Phinehas, Mattathias was concerned regarding both the foreign and immoral ways being adopted in the Holy Land, and also regarding the idolatry that was so intimately connected with these. And he took decisive action, in the style of the Old Testament.
Such recorded actions as the slaying of the adulterous man and pagan woman by Phinehas, and the slaying of the idolater and Gentile offical by Mattathias are understandably troubling to those of us who have been shaped by the mercy of Jesus. Nor do we have simply to deal with the record of Phinehas’ actions (mirrored by Mattathias), but also the approval of their deeds by God, as both delinated and implied in various parts of the Scriptures. In Psalm 106: 26-28 (LXX 105:30-31), we read:
Then [the Hebrews] yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor,
and ate sacrifices offered to the dead;
they provoked the LORD to anger with their deeds,
and a plague broke out among them.
Then Phinehas stood up and intervened, and the plague was stayed.
And that was counted to him as righteousness
from generation to generation forever.
Though the Psalm does not detail Phinehas’ actual violence in running a pagan woman with the sinning Hebrew man through with his sword, it does attribute the staying of God’s wrath to his action, and considers him a hero of Israel. The Psalmist is not taking liberties, for as the careful exegete Origen reminds us, “This work was imputed to him by God for righteousness when the Lord says, ‘Phinehas appeased my rage, and it shall be imputed to him for righteousness’ [Numbers 5:9].” Origen does not, however, take the actual actions of Phineas as exemplary, but rather stresses the principle that anger is not always sinful, when he continues, “That earthly food of anger therefore becomes our food when we use it rationally for righteousness” (Homilies on Genesis 1.17).
We have little commentary on Mattathias himself by the Church fathers, but there is ample reference to Phineas beyond Origen as the saintly commentators deal with the wrath of God, how we should conform ourselves to the life of Christ, and the temptations of faithlessness and adultery. St. Cyril of Jerusalem is the most direct in showing the contrast, as well as the parallel, between the actions of Phinehas and how God has acted on our behalf in Christ: “If Phinehas by his zeal in slaying the evildoer appeased the wrath of God, shall not Jesus, who slew no other but ‘gave himself a ransom for all,’ take away God’s wrath against humanity?” Here, in his Catechetical Lecture 13.2, the saint does not criticize the Old Testament harshness, but uses it to show the uniqueness of Jesus’ self-offering in removing the plagues of sin and death for us. He holds to St. Paul’s understanding that the OT stories are given “for our benefit” as examples.
Gregory of Nyssa makes the story personal, speaking about the power of baptism to slay sin: “Now if we have been conformed to his death, sin henceforth in us is surely a corpse, pierced through by the javelin of baptism, as that fornicator was thrust through by the zealous Phinehas” (On the Baptism of Christ).
Finally, St. John Chrysostom uses the story of Phinehas, on which Mattathias is modelled, both to encourage a priest who had fallen away from his celibacy, and to argue with those of the Jewish faith who rejected Christ. To his brother Theodore, who has entered into marriage and is arguing that marriage is honorable, Chrysostom reasons that sometimes harsh judgement is preferable to misguided mercy. Thus he compares Phinehas’ action favorably against the pleas of Samuel that God forgive Saul for his sins, to which God refused to listen. He explains it in this way: “If then mercy has been a cause of condemnation more than slaughter because God was disobeyed, what wonder is it if marriage condemns more than adultery when it involves the rejection of Christ? (Letter to the Fallen Theodore 2.3.5) In other words, Theodore is wrong to plead that he is not sinning like an adulterer, but simply married, when he has actually broken vows: this is as wrong-headed as presuming that God will be merciful and not act in righteous judgement when He is being disobeyed. Then, to his Jewish interlocutor, Chrysostom reasons that Phinehas slaying another man “put an end to all God’s wrath against the people,” but how much more should “this have happened in your case, if indeed the man [Jesus] that you crucified was a transgressor of the law?” (Discourses against Judaizing Christians 6.3.1.14) But instead Jerusalem was sacked, and the Jewish people faced the wrath of the Roman Empire. Clearly, then, they were mistaken in thinking that Jesus was an evil-doer who had to be removed by violence in order to save the people: though the principle of removing such a one is not disputed by the saint. But Jesus’ situation was the opposite to the OT stories of justice: He freely gave his life to rescue not only believing Jews, but Gentiles who had been estranged from God.
None of these saintly writers simply dismiss actions such as those engaged in by Phinehas and Mattathias, but take seriously the matters of discipline and judgement even for Christians in the time of the New Covenant, and show how these stories, called “texts of terror” by some contemporary commentators, can instruct us today. Even if we remain uncomfortable with the violence of Mattathias, we can surely applaud his courage and faithfulness as seen in the rest of chapter 2. He calls out to the townspeople: “Let every one who is zealous for the law and supports the covenant come out with me!” Then, he and his family and followers abandon their sanctuary in Modein for the experience of outlaws in the hills, as King David had in his early days. Other faithful families head out to hide from the edicts of the king, as they can in the wilderness. Soon, however, they find themselves threatened by the king’s forces on the Sabbath day, when they refuse to take up arms to defend themselves but keep the day holy.
When about a thousand of them have been murdered, including women and children, those who have hidden with Mattathias in the hills take action, and a passive resistance movement becomes an all out war. Taking counsel together, they decide that they must make an exception to the “no work” rule on the Sabath. They band together with another group called the Hasideans, about whom scholars disagree. This much we know of them: they were pious in following the law, as their name “Hasid” suggests, and at least some of them were experts in fighting. Towards the end of the chapter, they join with Mattathias and his followers, tearing down pagan altars, forcibly circumcising boys whom Jews who were following Antiochus’ campaign had neglected to circumcize, rescuing Torah scrolls, and generally not letting “the sinner gain the upper hand.”
Their resistance goes on for some time until Mattathias comes to the end of his life. He gathers his sons together, admits the violence of the time, and urges them to “show zeal for the law, and give your lives for the covenant of our ancestors.” Then, in a stirring speech that reminds us of the roll-call of faith in Hebrews 11, he calls to mind noteworthies of the past: Abraham, Phinehas, Joshua, Caleb, David, Elijah, the Three in the furnace, and Daniel. He exhorts them: “Observe, from generation to generation, that none of those who put their trust in Him will lack strength. Do not fear the words of sinners, for their splendor will turn into dung and worms. Today they will be exalted, but tomorrow they will not be found, because they will have returned to the dust, and their plans will have perished.” (1 Macc 2:61-3). Finally, he appoints his sons Simon as the counsellor (since his nickname Thassi means “the wise”) and Judas as the military leader (consonant with his nickname, “the hammer”). Finally, he rests in death, buried with his ancestors, and mourned by all the faithful in Israel.
This, then, is the preface to the main action of this book. In it we have set up, by the father and priest of the family, those two (Simon and Judas) who will be instrumental in leading the Jewish people to a time of independence. As readers we are also set up by Mattathias to expect a long and drawn out struggle in life in general: “My children, be courageous and grow strong in the law, for by it you will gain honor.” May his dying words serve as an encouragment to us to be brave and faithful to what Christ has shown us, infinitely more precious than the Law, and able to bring us not simply to honor among men, but to the very glory of God. May our resistance to the secular worldview around us be buttressed by our remembrance of those who have resisted well, and so remained faithful in unthinkably difficult times.
Just a note to my listeners or readers: I will be taking a break from the podcast and blog for the next two months, in order to attend conferences and celebrate my 50th wedding anniversary with a trip to Europe! See you in mid-July as we return to these exciting stories.
Edith M. Humphrey 