The Crisis and the Profanation of the Temple

The two books of the Maccabees, deuterocanonical, tell the gravest crisis Israel had passed through since the exile: a Greek king’s attempt to wipe out the Jewish faith, and the revolt that saved it. The first book follows the whole epic over a generation; the second takes up the same period, lighting it from within, through the Temple, martyrdom, and the hope of the resurrection. It all begins with a profanation: the sanctuary of Jerusalem turned into a pagan temple.

After Alexander, Hellenization

Alexander the Great had conquered all the East in a few years; at his death, his immense empire was divided among his generals, and Judea, a small province caught between two of these rival kingdoms, was fought over for more than a century, passing from the Greek kings of Egypt to those of Syria. With them spread Greek culture, hellenism: the language, the games of the gymnasium, the gods, a brilliant way of life that seduced part of the Jewish aristocracy, eager to be like the nations and to be well thought of by them. Influential men said a covenant should be made with the surrounding peoples, and ceased to set themselves apart from them. The priesthood itself was put up for auction: a certain Jason bought the office of high priest from the king, opened a gymnasium at the foot of the Temple, and priests were seen leaving the altar to run to the games; young men went so far as to erase from their bodies the mark of circumcision in order to compete naked in the stadium. Then Menelaus outbid Jason by offering more, and paid for his office by plundering the sacred vessels of the Temple. The true danger, at first, was therefore not the sword, but the seduction: the temptation to dissolve the faith of Israel into the surrounding culture, the very peril Ezra had fought at the return from exile, come this time from the top of the people and its priests.

Antiochus Epiphanes and the Profanation

King Antiochus IV, who had himself called Epiphanes, "the manifest god," wished to weld his peoples into one religion. He led two campaigns against Egypt; on the second, the Romans, become the masters of the world, ordered him to withdraw, and he had to obey, humiliated. On a false rumor of his death, Jerusalem had risen up; he saw in it a revolt and turned his rage against the city. He entered it, plundered the Temple treasury down to the golden vessels, massacred part of the inhabitants and sold others as slaves; his troops tore down the walls and built a citadel, the Akra, where a pagan garrison dominated the city and the Temple. Then he forbade by edict the Jewish faith throughout the land: no more sabbath, no more circumcision, no more sacrifices to the true God, on pain of death; the scrolls of the Law were burned wherever they were found, and the Jews were forced to sacrifice on pagan altars set up in every town. At the height of the outrage, he had an altar to the Greek god Zeus set up on the altar of burnt offerings, and swine, the most unclean of beasts, were offered on it. "they set up the abomination of desolation on the altar of burnt offerings." 1 Maccabees 1:57 The most holy place became a pagan shrine, and the daily sacrifice ceased for the first time in centuries. This "abomination of desolation," which the prophet Daniel had glimpsed, marked the memory of Israel so deeply that Jesus himself will take up the expression to announce the trials of the end.

The Persecution and the First Martyrs

The persecution was fierce and methodical. The king’s officers went from town to town setting up altars and forcing the Jews to sacrifice to idols and to eat swine’s flesh, on pain of death. Those in whose houses a copy of the Law was found were executed; the mothers who had had their children circumcised were thrown from the walls, with their infants hung around their necks. "They also put to death, according to the edict, the women who had had their children circumcised." 1 Maccabees 1:63 Groups of the faithful who had taken refuge in caves to keep the sabbath let themselves be massacred there, men, women, and children, without raising a hand, so as not to profane the day of rest. Many, out of fear, gave in and apostatized; but a great number stood firm in their hearts and resolved to eat nothing unclean, choosing to die rather than defile themselves and profane the holy covenant. These were the first martyrs, those witnesses who loved their faith more than their life. In a trial where fidelity cost one’s life, the question was put to each, bare: the Law of God, or life spared. It is this fidelity unto blood that the accounts to follow will bring into full light, before the revolt of the Maccabees arises.