Commentaries on
Early Jewish Literature
(CEJL)
Edited by
Loren T. Stuckenbruck
and
Pieter W. van der Horst · Hermann Lichtenberger
Doron Mendels · James R. Mueller
2 Maccabees
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Schwartz, Daniel R.
2 Maccabees / Daniel R. Schwartz.
p. cm. – (Commentaries on early Jewish literature (CEJL)) Includes an English translation of the text of 2nd Maccabees. Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-3-11-019118-9 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Bible. O. T. Apocrypha. Maccabees, 2nd – Commentaries. I. Bible. O. T. Apocrypha. Maccabees, 2nd. English. Schwartz. 2008. II. Title. III. Title: Two Maccabees. IV. Title: Second Maccabees.
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ISBN 978-3-11-019118-9
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Preface
In the 1980s my late teacher, Prof. Menahem Stern of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, best known for his Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and
Ju-daism, was among the main movers of a project to publish a series of
anno-tated Hebrew translations of Jewish literature of the Second Temple period. Stern himself undertook to prepare the volume on the Second Book of Mac-cabees, one of the central works of Hellenistic Judaism – but he was murdered a few months later (22 June 1989), at the age of sixty-four, in the context of what came to be known as “the first Intifada.” This brutal act, which snatched him from his family, his friends, his colleagues and his students, denied the world the opportunity of seeing both his History of the Second Temple Period, of which many incomplete drafts were found, and his analysis and interpre-tation of this central work of Hellenistic Judaism, of which only a short draft was found (published below, in my translation, as Appendix 7). May he rest in peace, and may the memory of him long continue to be a blessing.
Eventually, the publisher transferred the project to me, unprepared though I was. True, I was not unfamiliar with the book; already in the mid-seventies it had been one of the major texts upon which Prof. Stern had tested me in my M.A. examinations. Nevertheless, during the next decade my work had focused on later sources – Josephus, Philo, and the New Tes-tament. Stern’s death brought me back to the Hasmonean period – first to editing, from some of the drafts for his projected History of the Second
Temple Period, a volume entitled Hasmonaean Judaea in the Hellenistic World: Chapters in Political History (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar, 1995 [in
Hebrew]), and then to work on Second Maccabees.
Numerous responsibilities at the Hebrew University ensured that the pro-ject would take much longer than ever expected. The fact that it was event-ually completed, with the publication of my Hebrew translation and com-mentary in 2004, is due to the support of many institutions and individuals. I am very grateful, first of all, to Hebrew University’s Institute of Ad-vanced Studies, at which I was able to spend two fruitful years of research and writing. A semester at Yale University’s Dept. of Religious Studies, to-ward the end of the project, allowed me the leisure to bring it to completion. Besides such institutional help, there are many colleagues and friends. Here, pride of place goes to two: Dr. Emmanuelle Main, with whom I went
over, in detail, my Hebrew translation of every verse of the book, and Prof. Joseph Geiger, who wrote a detailed critique of the original Hebrew manu-script. Although I did not always accept their advice, all of it was invalu-able; it is a privilege to have such support and to receive such input. Dr. Noah Hacham, Dr. Daniel Stoekl-Ben Ezra, and Dr. Amram Tropper also spent many hours going over the Hebrew translation – and all of that im-pacted, very directly, on this English version as well. Others who generously proffered advice, about one or another historical or literary problem or about how to render this or that word, include Profs. Robert Doran, Erich Gruen, Galit Hasan-Rokem, Jan Willem van Henten, Moshe David Herr, Avi Hurvitz, Lee Levine, Hermann Lichtenberger, Doron Mendels, Joseph Mélèze Modrzejewski, Tessa Rajak, David Satran, Israel Shatzman, Avig-dor Shinan, Adiel Shremer, and Uri Rappaport; and my special debt to Prof. Bezalel Bar-Kochva should be obvious from the multitude of my references to his Judas Maccabaeus. And there were many others as well; above all – my students. The many years I spent on this project afforded several oppor-tunities to give seminars on Second Maccabees, and thereby to run up many flags and see who salutes;,lvkm rtvy ydymltmv ,ytlk>h ydmlm lkm. I hope I have not stolen too many ideas without proper acknowledgement.
The present English volume is, to a large extent, the product of several extended stays at the Department of New Testament Theology at the Uni-versity of Munich, courtesy of a prize from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and of the outstanding hospitality of the Department’s director, Prof. Jörg Frey, and his staff. These stays supplied ideal working conditions that allowed the project to move forward. In this connection, a special word of thanks to two assistants, Tanja Schultheiß and Eva Preuß, who helped with the proofreading in Munich. Back in Jerusalem, grants from Hebrew University’s Charles Wolfson Fund and from Scholion (Hebrew University’s Interdisciplinary Research Center in Jewish Studies) allowed for proof-reading by Deenah Pinson, Yonatan Miller, Nadav Sharon and Maya Sher-man; Scholion also provided me with superb working conditions for this project. Professor Loren Stuckenbruck of Durham read through the entire manuscript, and my friends Michael Blaustein and Judy Klitsner read through my translation of the Greek text and helped weed out translatio-nese and other problems. My sincere thanks to all of them – as well as to the editors of CEJL for their invitation to me to participate in this series.
Although this volume is based, to a significant extent, on the Hebrew one, there are various differences. Apart from adding general Comments before the verse-to-verse commentary on each chapter, from replacing ci-tations of Hebrew bibliography with references to works in western lan-guages, from eliminating various comments relevant only to the Hebrew
used in my translation (such as citations to demonstrate the existence of some odd word I felt compelled to use or to inform the reader that it was from Menahem Begin’s memoirs that I picked up the phrase I used at 7:3 to describe how a prisoner might infuriate his interrogator), from citing and using some new publications (and especially – a newly-discovered and very apposite Attalid inscription – see Appendix 2), and from integrating various second thoughts, corrections, and revisions, including corrections and sug-gestions by some reviewers of the Hebrew version, the most important change relates to the fact that the English translation is not only new but also qualitatively different from the Hebrew one.
Namely, while my Hebrew translation strove to render Second Maccabees’ Greek diction as closely as possible, even at the expense of readability, my Eng-lish translation of the Greek is freer and, consequently, more idiomatically English. That is, if it is impossible to read even a few lines of my Hebrew trans-lation without realizing that it is a transtrans-lation, this should not be the case with the present English translation. The reason for this difference derives from the chasm between Hebrew vocabulary and syntax and their counterparts in Greek, which ensures that any idiomatic Hebrew translation would be very far-removed from the Greek original. Given the facts that the book’s author invested such an effort (with sweat and tears – 2:26) into his work, and that the result is often quite impressive, I was loath to replace it with something far-removed. I wanted, rather, to reveal – as best I could – the beauty and the struc-ture of the Greek to my students; for it was my students I saw in my mind’s eye while I wrote, and most of them cannot read the Greek themselves. Accord-ingly, I rendered the text fairly literally, referring readers who want something more readable to other Hebrew translations of the work. Thus, for Hebrew readers I chose to do what Brock calls “bringing the readers to the book.”1
For the present English translation, however, I allowed myself more free-dom, for two reasons: (1) I contemplate more readers who know Greek (and assume that those who do not will, by and large, go on reading the standard translations in their Catholic Bibles or Protestant Apocryphas); (2) because English is much closer to Greek than Hebrew is, with regard to vocabulary and syntax, so the moves that allow for more idiomatic English usually en-tail less deviation from the Greek. For an example of this, see p. 6, n. 9. That is, in comparison with the move from Greek into Hebrew, when translating Greek into English one hardly has to choose between “bringing the readers to the book” and “bringing the book to the readers.”
1 See p. 68 of the Hebrew volume, which cites S. Brock, “Aspects of Translation
Thus, for example, when at 8:4 our author condemns the murder of in-fants as
παρνομο«
, lit. “law-violating,” a standard idiomatic Hebrew translation would use the rooti>r, “wicked,” and indeed both Kahana and Artom employ that root in their translations. However, such natural He-brew usage does not at all reflect the Greek’s reference to nomos, “law,” and since I was loath to hide that element, which is so central to our auth-or’s conception of Judaism (see below, p. 275), I chose to use a clumsy He-brew formulation that does reflect it (qvx irvp). In the present English translation, however, I used “lawless,” which does reflect the basic element and deviates from the Greek only insofar as it refers to the action as being “without” law rather than as being in violation of it (for “illegal” seems too low-key). This seemed to be a small and reasonable price to pay for idio-matic English. Cases like this one abound.As for the commentary, it is meant, primarily, to justify the translation and, as far as content and ideas are concerned, to elucidate the book as an expression of diasporan Judaism of the Hellenistic age. I have not at-tempted to reconstruct the history of all the book narrates, although I have attempted to do some of that and to supply assistance and bibliography to those who would pursue it. To borrow a phrase from Ernst Haenchen (Acts
of the Apostles, vii), I have instead attempted to be “a reader of Second
Maccabees,” and to share my understanding – of the book, and so of its author’s world – with other such readers. Hopefully, it will be useful.
Second Maccabees is a book by a diasporan Jew about the life and struggles of Jews living in and around Jerusalem. My work over the last many years on this ancient diasporan composition, while living in Jerusa-lem, has certainly seen some mutual influencing. On the one hand, it must be that living the life and struggles of modern Israel has impacted upon my understanding of this ancient book; readers will decide to what extent it has skewed it and to what extent – enhanced it. On the other hand, it is also the case that my work with this book has enriched my understanding of the life and struggles of contemporary Israel, and especially of the options Jews and “Judaism” (this book’s invention?) have in defining their place in this world. In other words, it has contributed to my consideration of the differences be-tween Jewish life in the Diaspora, where I grew up, and life “at home,” where I have spent the last three and a half decades. I dedicate this book to my wife and my children, who share with me, each in her or his own way, as with so many others, the challenges of confronting these complexities.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTIONI. Subject, Purpose and Date . . . 3
II. Sources and Development . . . 16
III. Historical Worth and Leading Ideas . . . 38
IV. Between the Bible and Greek Literature . . . 57
V. Language and Style . . . 67
VI. Reception and Text . . . 85
VII. Literature . . . 97
VIII. Abbreviations and Bibliography . . . 98
TRANSLATION AND COMMENTARY Introductory Letters (1:1–2:18) . . . 129 Author’s Preface (2:19–32) . . . 170 Chapter III . . . 181 Chapter IV . . . 207 Chapter V . . . 247 Chapter VI . . . 270 Chapter VII . . . 296 Chapter VIII . . . 320 Chapter IX . . . 349 Chapter X . . . 369 Chapter XI . . . 392 Chapter XII . . . 414 Chapter XIII . . . 445 Chapter XIV . . . 463 Chapter XV . . . 492
APPENDICES
Appendix 1: On the Letters in Chapters 1–2 . . . 519 Appendix 2: “to register the people of Jerusalem as
Antiochenes” (4:9) . . . 530 Appendix 3: “his second invasion” (5:1) . . . 533 Appendix 4: “as the residents of the place requested” (6:2) . . . . 537 Appendix 5: A Ptolemaic Account of Antiochus’ Decrees?
(2 Macc 6:7) . . . 541 Appendix 6: “the tribute (still owed) to the Romans”
(2 Macc 8:10, 36) . . . 544 Appendix 7: M. Stern, “The Battle Against the Galatians” (8:20) . 546 Appendix 8: “their own foods” (11:31) . . . 549 Appendix 9: “to be his successor” (14:26) . . . 551 Appendix 10: “the Syrian Language” (15:36) . . . 553 Appendix 11: “and ever since the city was taken over by the
Hebrews it has been in their hands” (15:37) . . . 556
INDICES
Index of References . . . 561 Index of Names and Subjects . . . 596 Index of Authors . . . 608
I. Subject, Purpose and Date
These three topics are linked together, for discerning what the book is about will help us determine why and when it was written.
The subject is very clear: the history of the city of Jerusalem from the be-ginning of institutionalized Hellenization under the high priest Jason around 175 BCE and until Judas Maccabaeus’ victory over the Seleucid general Nicanor in the spring of 161 BCE. The focus upon the city of Jeru-salem is clearly indicated by the brackets that surround the story: it begins (after the letters and preface that fill Chapters 1–2) with an idyllic municipal “once upon a time” at 3:1 (“The Holy City being inhabited in complete peace …”) and it ends with an unambiguous statement of cause and effect at 15:37: “Since the affairs concerning Nicanor turned out this way, and ever since the city was taken over by the Hebrews it has been in their hands, here I too will conclude this account.”
One cannot imagine a clearer indication of the work’s subject: the book is about Jerusalem, and so the restoration of an idyllic situation there com-pletes the circle that began at 3:1 and thus comcom-pletes the book.1
As for the upper chronological border being the beginning of institu-tionalized Hellenization under Jason ca. 175 BCE, here matters are a little more complicated, for Jason first appears in Chapter 4, in the same verse
1 Note that the author pays no attention to the fact that the original idyll had a Jewish
high priest ruling the city under Seleucid kings while, by the end, Seleucid rule has for all intents and purposes ceased. That does not interest our author, either because he knew that the latter was soon to be restored (see 1 Macc 9) or because he simply did not care about foreign rule as long as Judaism and its institutions were unthreatened. For the basic principle, that a book’s end is the best indication of the author’s objec-tive, see Tyson, “Jewish Public,” 582. In this case, the genitive absolute in 15:37 (“Since …”) makes this all the more clear; see Appendix 11. J. Geiger (“History of Judas Maccabaeus”) has suggested, in contrast, that 2 Maccabees should be viewed as a monograph about Judas Maccabaeus. Indeed, Judas is the main hero of the book. However, he appears for the first time only at 5:27 and then again only from Ch. 8. Athough this is not in and of itself a fatal objection (compare for example the Books of Judith and Ezra, where the heroes appear only at 8:1 and 7:1 respectively), it does suggest that we should look elsewhere for characterizing the book as a whole – and the brackets at 3:1 and 15:37 show us where.
that introduces Antiochus IV Epiphanes (4:7), and some significant ma-terial precedes this: the letters in 1:1–2:18; the author’s preface in 2:19–32; and the narrative of 3:1–4:6, which reports events under Antiochus’ brother and predecessor, Seleucus IV Philopator, who is named at 3:3 and whose death is reported in 4:7. True, there is no problem with viewing Chap-ters 1–2 as separate from the book itself, as these letChap-ters and the preface are clearly distinguished from it. But marginalizing 3:1–4:6, which features the long and sensational story of Heliodorus’ failed attempt to enter the Temple, in the days of Seleucus IV, requires some justification. There are two main considerations.
First, it seems that the book itself characterizes its story as one that begins with Jason: this is stated more or less explicitly in the first of the two letters prefixed to the book, at 1:7;2 it seems that even the second letter, in its
orig-inal form, presumed the same;3 the author’s summary of the book’s contents,
appearing in his preface (2:20), refers to the days of Antiochus Epiphanes as the book’s point of departure; and the summaries of Jerusalem’s tribulations at 8:2–4 and 8:17 have, accordingly, nothing to say about the events of Chapter 3. Second, note that the story of Chapter 3 is indeed a unit closed within itself, having its own happy end with Heliodorus’ defeat and recog-nition of the power of the Jewish God; the story does not move the book for-ward at all. Note especially, in this connection, that apart from 4:1b, which could well be editorial, Heliodorus and his “conversion” serve no function at all in 4:1–6, where we read of Simon’s complaints against Onias (vv. 1–4) and Onias’ decision to appeal directly to the king (vv. 5–6). Any reader should wonder why Onias makes no attempt to enlist Heliodorus, whose life he has just saved and who has recognized Onias’ sterling qualities.4
Thus, on the one hand, had the story proceeded from the opening idyll (3:1–3) and Simon’s squabbling with Onias (3:4) directly to the worsening of Simon’s complaints (4:1–4 [without v. 1b]) and Onias’ consequent deci-sion to go to the king in Antioch (4:5–6), the Heliodorus story would never have been missed.5 Taken together with the book’s positive references to
2 For the assumption that the first letter was composed in order to accompany our
book, see below, pp. 525–527.
3 See NOTE on 1:12, For He Himself drove out …
4 The fact that 4:1–6 functions without reference to the Heliodorus story is also
appar-ent in the fact that while 3:5 had Apollonius the son of Thraseas serving as governor of Coele Syria and Phoenicia, 4:4 has Apollonius son of Menestheus in the same posi-tion, without any hint of a need to explain what happened to his predecessor.
5 As Doran noted (Temple Propaganda, 51), the Heliodorus story “hardly deserves the
Jason as its starting point, we conclude that we should, indeed, characterize the story as one beginning with Jason.
On the other hand, however, it is clear from the authorial reflections at 5:18 that the Heliodorus story was part of the book that our author pre-pared. Nevertheless, it is obvious that the Heliodorus story is quite similar to the one in 3 Maccabees 1–2 about events under Ptolemy IV, who shared the same royal throne-name (Philopator) as Seleucus IV,6 and it is also
strik-ing that the story as we have it in 2 Maccabees 3 often avoids the name “Onias” and settles, in a stylistically disconcerting way, for “the high priest” (vv. 4, 9, 10, 15, 16, 21, 32, 33).7 These two considerations make it
likely that our author inserted into his narrative a story that he found which, although giving another name for the high priest (such as “Simon”
influence further historical developments.” I would add that the disproportionate length of the account itself suggests the use of a special source, for it is unlikely that an author would invest so much effort into creating a narrative which prescinds from his own agenda or, if he did, that he would fail to exploit it. Cf. for example Josephus’ long account of the conspiracy to assassinate Gaius Caligula (Ant. 19.1–273), which hardly has to do with “Jewish Antiquities;” on its source, see Feldman’s long note on 19.1 in the LCL edition.
6 True, these two kings were not homonyms in the full sense of the word, for our
author was capable of referring to such kings as “Ptolemy” and “Seleucus” without even mentioning their throne-names; see 1:10, 3:3. But the opposite also occurs; see 4:21, “King Philometor.” In any case, it is usual for names of kings to change as stories about them float around, and having the same throne-name would only en-courage this; see for example the way Jewish traditions mix up “Yannai” (Alexander Jannaeus) with Herod and others (Efron, Studies, 190–206). Tromp (“Formation,” 318–321) thinks that the story of 3 Maccabees was actually based on the one in our book, but this is hard to prove, especially given the widespread evidence for the float-ing motive of failed attempts to rob temples (see Stokholm, “Zur Überlieferung von Heliodor”); for the independence of the two stories, see Kasher, Jews in … Egypt, 212–213, n. 1, and Johnson, Historical Fictions, 136.
7 For a case in which Josephus does the same, preferring to use “the high priest”
re-peatedly rather than the name of the high priest in whose context he told the story, see
Ant. 11.325–339. For the argument that Josephus’ source used another name, see my
“On Some Papyri,” esp. 186–189. Cf. R. Marcus’ comment on Ant. 11.22, where Jo-sephus, whose chronological considerations led him to redirect to Cambyses a letter the Bible reported was sent to Artaxerxes, brought the document in the context of Cambyses but omitted his name, using instead only his title, “sovereign:” “By omitting the name Josephus avoids the awkwardness of openly correcting Scripture” (LCL Josephus, note c on Ant. 11.22). For other cases in which Josephus is similarly non-commital when he is unsure about the chronology of the events he is relating, see my “Cassius’ Chronology and Josephus’ Vagueness,” SCI 16 (1997) 109–112.
as in 3 Macc 1–2), served his purpose in a general way by illustrating God’s providential protection of the Temple of Jerusalem. Accordingly, while it is part of the book as our author produced it, the Heliodorus story should be understood as a prologue; the real story begins at 4:7.
In any case, it is clear that the first three verses of Chapter 3 announce the subject of the book: Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the Jews’ capital city and also, as an ancient polis, the capital of its territory, Judaea – the same conception in-dicated already in the first verse of the book (1:1: “the Jews in Jerusalem and in the country of Judaea”).8 Accordingly, when problems first occur they
concern “market supervision in the city” (3:4); and when in the next chapter Simon informs against Onias, who was in fact the “benefactor (euergetes) of the city” (4:2), Onias appeals to the king in an attempt to restore peace (4:6) and not, of course – as opposed to that villainous Simon – in order to accuse his “fellow-citizens” (politai – 4:5).9 This focus on the city remains dominant
throughout, as some prominent examples indicate: Jason’s reform changed the city’s status and politeias (4:9–11); the delegates who complained about the theft of Temple vessels are first defined as defenders of the city and only thereafter as those of the Temple vessels (4:48); Chapter 5 opens with an apparition in the sky above Jerusalem, then goes on to blame Jason for at-tacking the city and killing his fellow-citizens (5:6) and to report attacks on
8 On city-states in the Hellenistic period, and on their preservation of identity and
even a measure of independence despite the overarching monarchies, see: Ph. Gau-thier, “Les cités hellénistiques”, in: M. H. Hansen (ed.), The Ancient Greek
City-State (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1993) 211–231; E. S. Gruen, “The Polis in the
Hellenistic World,” in: R. M. Rosen & J. Farrell (ed.), Nomodeiktes: Greek Studies
in Honor of Martin Ostwald (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan, 1993) 339–354; Ma, Antiochos III.
9 Our book’s standard term for “fellow Jews.” See 4:5, 50; 5:6, 8, 23; 9:19 (!); 14:8. On
the term, see below, p. 51, n. 116. The Greek nature of such usage is easily evident in (a) the way it is absent from 1 Maccabees, which instead uses “brother” and “people” much more than our book does (on “brother” see our NOTE on 10:21, brethren, and as for “people” – note thatλα« appears 68 times in 1 Maccabees but only eleven times in 2 Maccabees, of which four are in the opening Jerusalemite epistles), and (b) the way modern translators of our book into Hebrew, a language which – as opposed to western languages (“fellow citizen, concitoyen, Mitbürger …”) – still has no way of rendering this sense, turn instead to ethnic terminology (“brother, people”). Thus, Kahana rendered the complaint that Jason killed “his own fellow-citizens” (τν πολιτν τν δ ν– 5:6) as if it referred to “the sons of his people;” he rendered the characterization of Razis asφιλοπολ τη« (14:37) as “lover of the sons of his people;” and when in 15:30 he renderedπολται “sons of his people” it forced him to use something else, “brothers,” to renderμοενε« in the continuation of that verse (see, respectively, Kahana, HaSepharim, 194, 228, 230).
the city by Antiochus and by Philip; Chapter 6 opens by formulating Anti-ochus’ decrees against the practice of Judaism as having prohibited Jews to “conduct their civic behavior” (
πολιτεεσαι
) according to God’s laws (6:1); after the martyrdom accounts of Chapters 6–7, which are exceptional in this regard,10 the city figures prominently alongside the Temple as what isthreatened in Chapter 8 (vv. 2–3, 17, 36); in Chapter 9 Antiochus’ threats (v. 4) and his promises (vv. 14–15) focus upon the city; Chapter 10 takes for granted that the Jews begin all their campaigns from the city (v. 27), just as Chapter 11 makes clear in vv. 2–3 that the new Seleucid invasion is primarily a threat to the city; in Chapter 12, which deals with events in distant regions of Palestine, Jerusalem figures as the axis of events (vv. 31, 43), just as in Chapter 13 the Jews march out to meet the royal army at Modein rather than wait until “the king’s army invaded Judaea and took control of the city,” and Judas encourages his men “to struggle nobly until death for laws, temple, city, fatherland, constitution” (13:13–14); the last martyr of the book, Razis, is first of all characterized as “a man who loved his fellow-citizens” (
φιλο-πολ τη«
– 14:37) and Judas Maccabaeus, on the eve of his final victory, is characterized as undertaking to fight “due to the danger facing the city, the holy things and the Temple” (15:17), although – as in the abovementioned instance at 4:48 – the threat was in fact directed against the Temple (14:33). Consequently, we are not surprised that, after his victory, Judas is character-ized as “he who with his whole body and soul had taken the lead in the struggle on behalf of his fellow citizens” (15:33), and that, as we have seen, a few verses later the author explains that his book has come to an end because the city returned to Jewish hands (15:37), reestablishing the idyllic status with which it all began at 3:1. So much for our book’s subject.As for the purpose of the book, it might appear to emerge easily from the comparison of two passages:
10 On the striking absence of “political” focus or language in these accounts, see below,
p. 19.
2 Maccabees 10:8 2 Maccabees 15:36
And they resolved by an edict and decree made in common that the entire (
δογμτισαν δ μετ
κοινο προστγματο« κα
χηφ σματο« παντ
) people of the Jews should celebrate these days annually.And they all decided, in a decree made in common (
δογμτισαν δ πντε«
μετ κοινο χηφ σματο«
), not at all to allow that day to remain unmarked, but, rather, to keep as special the thirteenth day of the twelfth month (which is called “Adar” in the Syrian language), the day before Mordechai’s Day.Given the demonstrative parallelism between these two passages, the book obviously is meant to encourage the observance of these two holidays, Ha-nukkah and Nicanor’s Day, which celebrate two stages in the struggle the book depicts: the purification of the Temple and the establishment of stable Jewish rule in the city. As Niese put it, “the establishment of the two Mac-cabean memorial days constitutes the middle and conclusion of the entire work.”11
However, a few points show that in fact the book was meant, originally, to serve the latter holiday alone,12 while the interest in Hanukkah came
only at a secondary stage. On the negative side, this emerges from two considerations: (1) the only passage in the book itself that refers to Hanuk-kah, 10:1–8 (concluding with the proclamation cited just above), sticks out like a sore thumb as an insertion, and (2) it is almost as clear that that passage was inserted by those Jerusalemites who added the letters at the beginning of the book. The first point, that 10:1–8 is a secondary inser-tion, results from the way it separates Antiochus IV’s death (at the end of Ch. 9) from the summary of that event (10:9); from the derogatory way it speaks about Gentiles, which is unusual for our book (see NOTE on 10:2,
non-Jews); from the precedence which it gives the Temple over the city
(10:1) and its interest in cultic details (v. 3), both of which depart from what is usual in our book;13 from its lack of worry about Dionysiac
associ-ations (v. 7); and from its relatively simple Greek style, including even a good bit of parataxis (six occurrences of
κα
!) in v. 3.14As for the second point, that the insertion is to be attributed to the Je-rusalemites who added the letters:15 this conclusion results from the fact
11 Niese, Kritik, 12; for the German original, and for the context, see below, n. 20. 12 On Nicanor’s Day, which seems still to have been celebrated in the days of Josephus
(Ant. 12.412) and the post-talmudic period (see J. Tabory, “When was the Scroll of Fasts Abrogated?,” Tarbiz 55 [1986] 263–264 [in Hebrew]), see J. Schwartz, “Once More,” 272–273.
13 See below, pp. 46–48.
14 Apart from the first letter, where this is common, there is nothing else like this in our
book. Similarly, note that after vv. 1–3 are simply linked one to another with “ands,” vv. 4–8, which are not, are each a single sentence; no periods. See also, in this connec-tion, the NOTES on 10:1, took (unusually low-key diction) and 10:3, after a
two-year period (unusual use of chronological terminology).
15 In support of that assumption about the letters it is enough to note, apart from the
names of the writers given in 1:1, 10, that these letters appear prior to the author’s pref-ace and that the first, and perhaps also the second, was written originally in Hebrew or Aramaic. See Appendix I. For retroversions of the letters, into Aramaic and Hebrew, respectively, see Torrey, “The Letters” and Hack, “Two Hanukkah Letters.”
they needed such a passage, because otherwise the book did not justify, or even explain, the call to celebrate Hanukkah; from the common emphasis on all the people being called upon to celebrate (cf. esp. 2:17!); from the common interest in cultic details (note esp. the similarity of the list in 1:7 with that in 10:3), which contrasts sharply with what is usual for the rest of the book (see below, pp. 46–48); from the fact that only the story at 1:31–32 can explain the obscure reference to “igniting rocks and extrac-ting fire from them” in 10:3; from the fact that of the whole book only 10:6–7 explains the letters’ characterization of Hanukkah as a type of Tab-ernacles festival (1:9, 18); and from the desideratum that we be economical and not hypothesize more editors and interpolators than the evidence requires.
On the positive side, the fact that the book was meant, originally, to foster celebration of Nicanor’ Day results from two main considerations: (1) It comes at the end of the book, which prima facie means that it was the author’s intended objective (see above, n. 1). Thus, in a manner reminiscent of the establishment of commemorative festivals in Esther 9:26–32 and 3 Maccabees 7:18–19,16 2 Maccabees 15:36 represents not only the last
piece of information in the book but also its purpose.
(2) The arrangement of the book as a whole points to Nicanor’s central status: the first campaign (Ch. 8) and the final one (15) are both against Ni-canor. That this is a matter of authorial intention emerges all the more clearly from the fact that comparison with 1 Maccabees leads historians to well-founded doubts about the centrality of Nicanor in the first cam-paign17 and in the events recorded at 14:12–25,18 and also to doubt our
book’s presumption that both narratives in our book refer to one and the same Nicanor.19 For our author and (so he assumed) for his readers there is
no doubt at all: there was one Nicanor, termed “thrice-accursed” at both
16 Which says that the Jews decided to celebrate a holiday in memory of their
deliver-anceπ τ"ν τ#« παροικ α« α$τν ξρνον– throughout the time of their residence in Egypt (not merely “during the time of their stay” at Ptolemais, as the RSV might imply). See Grimm, 2 Macc, 277.
17 For according to 1 Macc 3:38 Nicanor was one of three commanders and 4:1, 5, 18
indicate that one of the other two, Gorgias, was in fact the main figure; Nicanor is no-where mentioned in 1 Maccabees’ long account of this campaign after its opening verse. Our book, in contrast, mentions Gorgias only once in Chapter 8, and there he comes only “alongside” Nicanor and never functions in that story.
18 Concerning which events 1 Macc 7:8–10 has Bacchides instead of Nicanor. Our book
mentions Bacchides only once, in a marginal role (8:30).
8:34 and 15:3, and Judas Maccabaeus’ victories over him bracket all of his activity as depicted in our book.
Having established, however, both from its end and from its structure, that our book was meant to lead up to and justify Nicanor’s Day, we must recognize that in its present form it is meant to do something else: justify the celebration of another holiday, Hanukkah.20 In fact, both letters attached at
the beginning of the book invite their addressees to celebrate this latter holi-day, making no mention of Nicanor or of the festival marking his defeat. Thus, in discussing the book’s purpose we must make a clear distinction between different layers of purpose. Looking at the book as it is, the ob-vious purpose is to encourage readers to celebrate the holiday of Hanuk-kah. However, this is only a formal statement, one that goes hand in hand with saying the book was “written” by the Jews of Jerusalem, since for-mally the book is an attachment to their two opening cover letters.21
His-torically speaking, however, we should conclude from the contrast between the letters, which point to Hanukkah, and the body of the book, which points to Nicanor’s Day, that the book was expanded, by Jerusalemites, in the opening chapters and in Chapter 10, to make it serve a purpose for which it was not originally intended. In doing so, however, they took care (as we saw in the comparison of the language of 10:8 to 15:36) to make their interpolation fit as best as possible into the book; the same is indicated by their use of “reconciliation” language at 1:5, which points, as we shall see (below, pp. 21–22), to a basic theme in our book.22
20 This discrepancy between form and current structure of our book was especially
underlined by Momigliano: Prime linee, 67 and “Second Book of Maccabees,” 88. For a good example of how evident it is, however, note already the legerdemain with which Niese (Kritik, 12) moves, in referring to festivals, from singular to plural and then back to singular from one sentence to the next: “Der Hauptgedanke [of the opening letter], der sich in Anfang, Mitte und Ende findet, ist die Mahnung, das Fest der Tempelweihe mitzufeiern. Darin liegt zugleich der Zusammenhang mit der fol-genden Darstellung; denn die Stiftung der beiden makkabäischen Gedenktage bildet gleichsam den Mittelpunkt und Abschluss des Ganzen. Unterstutzt wird jene Mahnung weiter [in the opening letter] durch die Erzählung von der Einweihung des Tempels und der Auffindung des heiligen Feuers durch Nehemias. Denn dieses Fest ist ein Vorläufer der makkabäischen Feier und der Schriftsteller denkt es sich vielleicht an demselben Tage, dem 25. Kislev, begangen.”
21 For that characterization of the book, see esp. van Henten, “2 Maccabees as a History
of Liberation;” cf. below, n. 100.
22 For some emphasis on the similarity of the first letter to the body of the book, see
Toki, “The Dates,” 72–74. But there is no reason to infer that it was part of the book from the outset. As for the second letter, the differences between it and the rest of the
Dating the book: This discussion of the relationship of the letters to 10:1–8
serves not only to defend our characterization of the book as one meant to justify and explain Nicanor’s Day by showing that that which points instead to Hanukkah is secondary. It also contributes to establishing the dating of our book. For if it is the case that 10:1–8 was inserted into an extant con-text, and that the epistles in Chapters 1–2 were added at the same time, as cover letters accompanying an extant book,23 then the date of the letters is a
terminus ad quem for the book as a whole. Given the fact that the first letter was written in 169 of the Seleucid Era (henceforth: SE),24 as is stated in 1:7,
i.e., 143/142 BCE, it emerges that the book was ready by then.
That Jerusalemites would be interested in sending out a book like this, supplemented with the Hanukkah story, in 169 SE, is quite understandable. For this year, by the Jewish (Babylonian) reckoning (as we should expect from Jerusalemites), ran from the spring of 143 to that of 142 BCE, and, therefore, included the first half of 170 SE according to the Seleucid (Mace-donian) era (autumn 143 – autumn 142) – and according to 1 Maccabees it was precisely in that year, 170 SE according to the Macedonian system, that Demetrius II granted Judaea full exemption from taxes, a step quite properly heralded as the “removal of the Gentiles’ yoke from Israel” (1 Macc 13:41).25
True, it is usual to date our book at least two decades later, but the main argument is only the reading “Year 188” (SE = 125/124 BCE) in 1:10a. In our NOTE ad loc., and in Appendix 1, I explain why I prefer to follow those witnesses that read “148,” i.e., 165/4 BCE, and to take this not as the date of the letter, but as the date of the original event that the Hanukkah fes-tival commemorates. Accordingly, I have translated 1:9–10, “And now (we
book are clear; see Toki, loc. cit., 71–72 and Stern, Studies, 353–354. But it seems to me that whoever added the first letter added the second as well; see Appendix 1.
23 See above, pp. 4, 8–9.
24 As is usual (but see our NOTE on 6:1, Not much time later) we assume that there were
two different ways of calculating years SE: the Babylonian system, used also by Jews, counted from the spring of 311 BCE, while the Macedonian system, used by the Seleu-cids, began in the autumn of 312 BCE. For the issues and defense of this consensus view, see Lebram, “Zur Chronologie;” Bar-Kochva, JM, 562–565; and Goldstein, 1 Macc, 22–25. For a convenient rule for calculating conversions, see ibid. 22–23, n. 47.
25 The assumption that the reference to 170 SE in this verse is to be interpreted
accord-ing to the Macedonian system is based on the fact that it appears in the verse right after Demetrius’ letter (1 Macc 13:36–40). That letter, as cited in 1 Macc, concludes without a date, but presumably had one at its end (as, for example, all the letters in 2 Macc 11), so it is natural to assume that the author of 1 Maccabees simply chose to weave it into his narrative. For another case of the same, see 1 Macc 15:10.
have written you) so that you shall celebrate the days of (the festival of) Tabernacles of the month of Kislev of the year 148,” and suggest it is to be understood in the way we would understand posters calling upon Ameri-cans, today, to celebrate the great events “of July 4, 1776.”
On the other hand, we may also note that such an early dating of our book solves a riddle which has at times exercised scholars. The book was written by a partisan of Jerusalem and its Temple but its beginning (Chapters 3–4) and end (15:12–14) portray the high priest Onias as a hero. That poses a problem because the Temple of Onias, founded in Egypt some-time during the second century BCE (see below), competed with that of Je-rusalem and was (so we may assume) viewed as illegitimate, perhaps even as an abomination, by partisans of the latter – certainly in the early years of its existence, before it became a fixed part of the scenery.26 How could such a
book portray Onias as a hero? Some, building especially on Josephus’ War (1.33, 7.423), explain that our book refers to Onias III, who was the high priest in Jerusalem, while it was his son, Onias IV, who founded the Temple in Egypt.27 But even if we were to accept that – despite the facts that our
book (4:30–34) has its Onias (who is apparently Onias III) being murdered in Antioch, and that Josephus’ later and more detailed work, Antiquities, holds clearly, as we shall see, that it was Onias IV who founded the Temple in Egypt – it must be emphasized that our book does not distinguish be-tween its Onias and his son. As Stern noted, to praise “Onias” without mak-ing clear that the reference is not to the well-known villain is not the way partisans write.28 Others would explain that we have here a subtle move on
the part of our author, who is telling his readers that the real and laudable Onias was in fact devoted to the Temple of Jerusalem.29 But that might be
too subtle and in any case there was no need for such a move, for all knew that Onias III had been high priest in Jerusalem and it was indeed from this fact that Onias IV, and the temple he founded, derived their claims to
legit-26 For expressions – even much later – of such criticism, which derives in general from
beliefs about the “holy land” and specifically from the Deuteronomistic insistence that there be only one temple, see for example the satire at Ant. 13.65–71 and the legal rulings at m. Menahot 13.10; see also Schwartz, “Jews of Egypt,” 18 (and ibid.
n. 24 – a response to Gruen, “Origins and Objectives,” 61–62).
27 For this debate, see NOTE on 3:1, Onias.
28 Stern, Studies, 41. For a similar case (rabbinic failure to differentiate between
Agrip-pas indicating a lack of distinction between them) see Schwartz, Agrippa, 162.
29 G. Bohak, “Joseph and Asenath and the Jewish Temple in Heliopolis” (Diss.
Prince-ton, 1994) 137–144. (This section did not appear in the 1996 published version with the same title.)
imacy. Rather, it seems that the easiest explanation is that these chapters were written before the Temple of Onias was in fact founded. Indeed, it seems they were written at a time when there was still a basic alliance be-tween the Hasmoneans and the Oniads, because Onias IV could expect the Hasmoneans to restore him to the high priesthood in Jerusalem. After all, he was the heir apparent to the position, which had been usurped by Seleucid protégés (Jason, Menelaus, Alcimus), and he could hope that when the Has-moneans defeated the Seleucids they would give him that which was his due. To bolster this suggestion we should note that Josephus seems to have known exactly where to place the foundation story of the Temple of Onias. First, at Antiquities 12.237, when Josephus records the death of Onias III he mentions that he left behind an infant son named Onias (IV), promising to tell his story “in the (proper) place.” Next, at §§387–388, Josephus reports that that son emigrated to Egypt because he had been passed over for the high priesthood. In this passage Josephus proleptically mentions that this Onias built a temple in Egypt, but promises to give the details of that “in a more appropriate place.” Finally, at Antiquities 13.62, just after recording the death of Demetrius I, which occurred in 150 BCE, Josephus narrates in detail how Onias IV founded his temple in Egypt. Given such a carefully distributed story, we have no reason to doubt Josephus’ chronology – which is, in fact, quite reasonable from a political point of view. Namely, the same struggle that resulted in the death of Demetrius I saw Alexander Balas, Demetrius’ competitor, appointing the Hasmonean Jonathan to the high priesthood (1 Macc 10:15–21). Until then Onias could look forward to Hasmonean victory, playing the role of the legitimate heir to the high priest-hood awaiting the opportunity to claim his birthright. Now, however, Jon-athan’s acceptance of the high priesthood meant a parting of ways between the Hasmoneans and the Oniads; it was effectively a Hasmonean announce-ment that to the victors go the spoils and that they would not content them-selves with fighting and concede the high priesthood – which entailed a large measure of rule (see NOTE on 3:9, high priest of the city) – to someone else.30 It would be perfectly logical if, as emerges from Josephus’ location of
the various segments of this story, Onias IV now set about building a temple of his own. This chronology conforms well with our suggestion above, that
30 For the Hasmonean statement on their own descent, in answer to those who would
claim they lacked the proper pedigree, see 1 Macc 5:62. Similarly, the use to which the dynasty’s house historian (1 Macc 2:24–26, 54; see also 1:15,ζεψγ σησαν, with Num 25:3) put the Phineas story was obviously meant to justify the Hasmoneans’ claim to the high priesthood: as for Phineas (esp. Num 25:11–13), so too for the Has-moneans, zealotry entitled them to the high priesthood.
the pro-Onias material in our book was already composed before Onias’ Temple was built, having been written on the basis of the notion that the Oniads were partisans of the Temple of Jerusalem. That is, the status of Onias in our book urges us to move the book’s terminus ad quem up to a date before the Temple of Onias was founded. This is an additional argu-ment for preferring to date the first letter, and so the book in its final form, to the 140s BCE, rather than moving it down to 125/124 or later.
Finally, in this connection, we may note that the reference in 4:11 to “Jo-hanan (father of the Eupolemus who participated in the embassy concern-ing friendship and alliance with the Romans)” not only implies that the latter event (Judas Maccabaeus’ alliance with Rome in 161 BCE31) is fresh
in the readers’ memories; it also implies that they know of only one such delegation to Rome. But from 1 Maccabees and Josephus we know of sev-eral other delegations sent by later Hasmoneans, beginning with the one sent by Jonathan in the mid- or late 140s; see 1 Maccabees 12:1–4; Josep-hus, Antiquities 13.260–265; 14.145–148, 247–255. It is easiest to under-stand 2 Maccabees 4:11 on the assumption that the author wrote before such later delegations.
To summarize: our book was originally composed as a history of the
trials and tribulations of Jerusalem under Antiochus Epiphanes, including the institutionalized Hellenization initiated by Jason at the outset of Anti-ochus’ reign, that king’s decrees against Judaism, and Judas Maccabaeus’ wars down to his victory over Nicanor in the spring of 161. That victory was perceived to be the final salvation of Jerusalem, and, accordingly, the book culminates in the holiday celebrating that victory – Nicanor’s Day. In time, however, the victory over Nicanor turned out to be a transient one, for Judas was killed, Jerusalem was returned to Seleucid rule and the Hasmon-eans fled the city (1 Macc 9:33). But matters of state are one thing, matters of religion are another; despite the Seleucid revanche in Judaea, the decrees against Judaism were not renewed and the Temple remained in Jewish hands – so in time the festival of Hanukkah came to seem more significant. In any case, it seems that in 143/142 BCE, upon the achievement of Judaean independence, Jerusalemite propagandists superficially adapted the book to their own purposes by adding a section on Hanukkah (10:1–8) and append-ing two letters, one of their own and one purportappend-ing to be from Judas Mac-cabaeus on the eve of the first Hanukkah, inviting the Jews of Egypt to join in the celebration of that holiday.
31 For this alliance, see 1 Macc 8. For defense of its historicity, see Stern, Studies, 51–76;
Thus, it seems that our book was written somewhat before our other main source for the period it describes, 1 Maccabees, since that work was written no earlier than John Hyrcanus’ succession of his father in 135/134 BCE (the event with with which it ends), and perhaps even a few decades later.32 This conclusion deviates somewhat from the generally accepted
hy-pothesis, which depends upon reading “Year 188” in 1:10,33 although it is
widely agreed that Jason of Cyrene, upon whose work 2 Maccabees is based (see the next section), wrote very close to the events.34
32 Concerning the date of 1 Maccabees’ composition, there have been two main
ap-proaches. One takes the reference in the work’s last two verses to “the book of chron-icles of John Hyrcanus’ high priesthood” that recounts “the rest of his works” as evi-dence that he was dead already, which results in a terminus post quem at the end of his tenure, with his death in 104 BCE; this is then bolstered by emphasizing hints in the book to a long passage of time since events it mentions (such as 13:30). The other takes the book’s closing reference merely as a biblicizing phrase (cf. 1 Kgs 14:29, 16:27; 2 Kgs 10:20, 20:34) that means only that the author considered Hyrcanus to be a ruler like his biblical forebears; the result is a terminus post quem for the book at the beginning of Hyrcanus’ reign (135/134), which may then be bolstered by the im-pression that the author witnessed some of the events he reports and that the author was not aware of later events. For the former approach, see e.g. Niese, Kritik, 9; for the latter (and a broad review of the issue) – Bar-Kochva, JM, 152–168.
33 Given this usual terminus post quem for the book, usual datings proceed on the
as-sumption that it was written between then and the Roman conquest of Judaea, which would have precluded the statement at 15:37. Thus, for example, Niese, Kritik, 9; Goldstein, 1 Macc, 3.
34 For a list of scholars supporting the view that Jason was a contemporary of Judas
Maccabaeus, and the characterization of that view as one that can hardly be doubted seriously, see Habicht, 2 Macc, 175–176, n. 45. Habicht bases his opinion especially on the reference to “Johanan, father of the Eupolemus …” in 4:11 – which we have used the same way, but with reference to our book, not to Jason’s original opus. As perusal of Habicht’s discussion shows, it is only the date “188” in 1:10 that forces him to make this distinction.
II. Sources and Development
In the preceding section we argued that the letters in 1:1–2:18 and the story in 10:1–8 were added to an extant book. What of the rest of the book? Is it all of one piece?
Already the preface at 2:19–32 indicates that the volume is the product of a fairly complicated process: it reports that the present work is a con-densed version of a five-book history written by one Jason of Cyrene. In the present section we will ask whether all of the book, from 3:1 to the end, apart from 10:1–8, is to be traced back to that Jason, as well as what we can know about the sources used in producing the book and how it used them – questions of cardinal importance for the evaluation of the book and for its use as an historical source, whether as a witness to the events it describes or as witness to its own values and ideas.
As a point of departure we shall note the welcome fact that the received division of our book into chapters is indeed appropriate and meaningful, and that, with one exception (Ch. 14), the author indeed seems to have re-lated to the chapters, as we have them, as separate and complete units. Four chapters (3, 7, 13, 15) end with formal transitional summaries; to them we may add Chapter 9, on the basis of our argument (above, p. 8) that it orig-inally ended with a transitional summary such as the one now found at 10:9 after the interpolation concerning Hanukkah. Another five chapters (4, 5, 8, 10, 12) are defined by the fact that the chapters that follow them open with new chronological markers.35 Chapter 11 too is easily defined by the
end of the fourth document, although in this case the transitional summary comes only in the first verse of Chapter 12.36 This leaves only Chapter 6 and
Chapter 14, both of which are parts of two-chapter sections:
35 In some cases more than one criterion applies to the same chapter. Thus, for example,
Ch. 13, which is concluded by a formal summary, is also followed by a chapter open-ing with a new chronological marker. Or, for another type of closure, note that Ch. 4 ends with two words (π βοψλο« καεστ)«) that figure prominently in the chapter’s first two verses, thus neatly rounding out the chapter.
36 For a similar phenomenon, note that there is not infrequent disagreement among
Bibles as to whether a given verse should be viewed as the final verse of a given chapter or the first of the next (so, for example, at the transition from Num 29 to
– Chapter 6, which tells the story of the first persecutions, focusing on Eleazar, is followed by Chapter 7, which recounts the martyrdom of the mother and her seven sons. As Doran noted, the last verse of the latter, 7:42 (“Let that, on the one hand, be enough said about the eating of the entrails of sacrifices [
σπλαγξνισμο«
] and the tortures [α κ α«
] which exceeded all bounds”) alludes separately to the two chapters, since of the two Greek terms cited, the former appears only, but prominently (vv. 7, 8, 21), in the Eleazar story and the latter appears only, but just as prominently, in that of the mother and her seven sons (vv. 1, 13, 15).37 Thus, the author treatsChapters 6–7 as being two separate but linked units, sharing a basic theme. – Chapter 14 ends with the death of Razis but still in the middle of the Nicanor story. Moreover, Chapters 14–15 are closely bound together by the way 15:34 fulfills 14:36 and 15:30, 32 respond tit for tat to 14:33. Thus, in this case it seems the story was simply too long to fit into one chapter and was therefore divided into two pieces. In analyzing the book below, how-ever, we will handle them together.38
Our conclusion is that of Chapters 3–15 we may treat each chapter (and Chapters 6–7 and 14–15 together) as a discrete unit, so – all things being equal – whatever we can show about a part of a chapter we may expect to be true for the chapter as a whole. Now, as far as composition-criticism and source-criticism are concerned, let us now ask whether they are all of a kind. Are they all condensed from Jason’s work, so we should really call the man responsible for the final product39 only “epitomator,” as is usual, on
the basis of his statement at 2:23–31? Or did he do more, sufficient to war-rant terming him the “author?”
It is convenient to begin this discussion from the end. We have already noted that Chapters 14 and 15 are a unit, as is shown by the way the victory and Nicanor’s punishment in Chapter 15 correspond, even literally, to the threats in Chapter 14.40 Now we may add that Chapter 15 is very similar to
Chapter 8. Both use the rare term “thrice-accursed” to describe Nicanor;
Num 30); some do it this way, some that. On the way transitional summaries function the way our modern indenting and paragraphing do, and on the difficulty of deciding whether to put them at the end of the last unit or at the outset of the new one, see Wif-strand, Epochs, 97–98.
37 See Doran, Temple Propaganda, 22.
38 The case is therefore similar to that of the second letter, which is broken into two at
the end of Ch. 1. Cf. Josephus, Ag. Ap. 1.320.
39 Apart, of course, from the Jerusalemite additions in Chs. 1–2 and 10:1–8.
40 Apart from the parallels at 15:34//14:36 and 15:30, 32// 14:33, note also 15:8 (τν
both have him invading Judaea; both have Judas Maccabaeus encouraging his soldiers with a speech that recounts biblical salvation stories including that in the days of Sennacherib; in both Nicanor is defeated; and there are several literal parallels between the two chapters (see NOTE on 15:7, that
assistance would be made available). It is very difficult to imagine that the
two chapters were written by different authors, and there is no evident rea-son to consider such a possibility.
But Chapters 14–15 are also very similar to Chapters 3–4. Note the cen-tral role of Onias in Chapters 3–4 that recurs in 15:12–16; the great simi-larity, in reverse, of the good Onias’ appeal to the king in 4:1–6 and the wicked Alcimus’ at 14:3–10;41 and the way antagonists are dramatically
poised against each other at 3:22–23;42 14:33–34; 15:5–6, 25–26. So
again, and certainly when we acknowledge a methodological preference for the presumption that a book stems from a single writer, we see no rea-son to doubt that Chapters 3–4 come from the same hand as Chapters 8 and 14–15.
Next, however, we may add that Chapter 5 is closely linked to Chapter 4, inasmuch as 4:26 has Jason fleeing to Ammonitis and Chapter 5 has him re-turning to Jerusalem but again fleeing to Ammonitis (5:7) after his unsuc-cessful attempt to take over the city. Accordingly, Chapter 5 thus comes easily along with Chapter 4, just as easily as it links up in its own right with Chapter 3, with which it shares the interest in gifts by foreign kings to the Temple of Jerusalem (3:2–3//5:16) and with Chapter 15, where too we read of the exploitation of the Sabbath by someone who would attack the Jews (5:25//15:1–2).
But if it is thus fairly easy to confirm, via interlocking comparisons, that Chapters 3–5, 8, and 14–15 may safely be assumed to be (as we find them) of one and the same work, from this point things become somewhat more difficult. Concerning Chapter 6, first of all, it seems we must distinguish be-tween the first eleven verses, the next six, and the rest of the chapter. The first eleven verses are much like the rest of the book: the notion that the ob-servance of Judaism is comparable to the obob-servance of a municipal law code (
πολιτεεσαι
– v. 1), the paralleling of Jerusalem and Gerizim in v. 2 (as at 5:22–23),43 the prominence of Dionysus in v. 7 (as at 14:33), the“pathetic” exploitation of women’s breasts in v. 10 (as at 3:19; contrast
41 See below, pp. 81–82.
42 See our NOTE on 3:22, on the one hand.
43 See Appendix 4. And note that the fact that our pro-Jerusalem author has no
diffi-culty with such a parallel with Jerusalem’s cultic competitor sits well with his general lack of interest in temple cult per se; see below, pp. 46–48.
the prudish 1 Macc 1:61, which speaks here only of necks), and the sanctity of the Sabbath in vv. 6 and 11 (as at 5:25; 8:26–27; 12:38; 15:1–2)44 are all
well at home in our book. When one adds that Chapter 6 opens with the Temple’s being polluted (v. 2 –
μολ ναι
) just as Chapter 5 had ended with Judas Maccabaeus and his men avoiding pollution (v. 27 –μολψσμο
),45and that 6:3 (
π στασι« τ#« κακ α«
) plays with 5:22 (πισττα« το
κα-κο ν
), it becomes even more certain that 6:1–11 are from the same hand as Chapters 3–5, 8, and 14–15.Skipping for the moment over the next six verses (12–17), in which the first-person singular is used to address readers and encourage them to draw the proper theological conclusions from the story, we come now to the mar-tyrdom stories of 6:18–32 (Eleazar) and Chapter 7 (the mother and her seven sons). It appears that with respect to these it must be concluded that although they do constitute part of the book, their origin is different from the rest; that is, they reflect the use of a source. That their origin is different results from several considerations:
– They are entirely devoid of all “political” terminology – no
πλι«
,πολ τη«
,ποολιτεεσαι
, orπολιτε α
;46– Assuming – as the reader must – that the persecutions described took place in Jerusalem or at least somewhere in Judaea,47 they contradict the
rest of the story insofar as they place the king there and not back in Syria (where he went in 5:21, and whence he sent out his agents according to 5:24 and 6:1);
– 8:2–4, a prayer which lists all the Jews’ sufferings in order to move God to mercy, makes no reference to these major episodes; the closest it
44 See our NOTE on 5:25, pretended.
45 Which in turn prepares us for the contrast at 14:32 with Alcimus, who had willingly
polluted himself (Ψκοψσ « δ μεμολψμμωνο«).
46 See H&R, 2.1180. The entry forπλι« is especially impressive: it appears 24 times in
our book prior to 6:10 and another 24 times from 8:3 until the end of the book, but not once in between. In this whole family of words, the only exception isπολιτε α, which appears in a few witnesses to 6:23 – but no one would defend that reading. In contrast, Ch. 7 prefers another view of the law:πτριοι νμοι (ancestral laws [7:2, 24, 37]; note also “ancestral language” in vv. 8, 21, 27). This way of looking at Jew-ish law recurs only once elsewhere in our book (6:1). So too, note that Ch. 7 twice mentions Moses (vv. 6, 30), who is never mentioned elsewhere apart from the open-ing epistles, and that it never mentions the Temple (a point noted by Bowersock, al-though I would reject the conclusion he built on this; see below, n. 51).
47 Although Jerusalem is not mentioned explicitly, this is the only natural assumption
for readers. For the possibility that, in fact, the persecutions were originally linked to Antioch, see below, n. 212 (on the cult that developed these).
comes is a reference to “the destruction of innocent infants,” but that refers back to the episode recorded at 6:10 (for no one would claim that the seven brothers of Ch. 7 were infants).
– Finally, there are several strange phrases in the martyrologies of Chapters 6–7. Even if we stop short of Habicht’s suggestion that they reflect translation from the Hebrew,48 they may reflect an attempt to biblicize the
style, something that is all but absent in the rest of the book.49
Thus, it seems that these narratives were not written by whoever wrote the chapters discussed until now. This means either that they were added to the book after it was composed or that they reflect the use of a source by its author.50 It seems that the latter is more probable. For the chapters are quite
“at home” in the work and, indeed, constitute a very integral part of it.51
48 See Habicht, 2 Macc, 171, along with his notes 1a, 2b, 6a, 9ab, 17a and 23a on Ch. 7
and our NOTE on 6:30, fear. Habicht thought that the chapter was translated from Hebrew and added to the book after it was composed, but see below, n. 51.
49 Other exceptions: 5:13; 15:14, 24.
50 One way or another, our conclusion goes hand in hand with the fact that despite our
book’s general lack of popularity among Jews (see below, pp. 85–88) the martyrdom stories were widely diffused; that is, they had a life of their own. On the Jewish tradi-tions, see Doran, “The Martyr;” Spiegel, Last Trial, 13–16; Gutman, “The Mother;” G. D. Cohen, “Hannah.” As to whether one or two sources underlie the story of Elea-zar and that of the mother and her seven sons, see Habicht, 2 Macc, 171, n. 19. For Christian life of the martyrologies, see below, pp. 88–89.
51 For emphasis upon the fact that the martyrologies fit 2 Maccabees well, see Doran,
Temple Propaganda, 22; although he concludes that the story existed independently,
and that “no one can tell whether Jason or someone else used the story,” he con-cludes that “it fits its present context in the epitome admirably, both through the summary at 2 Macc 7:42 and through the theme of reconciliation through suffer-ing.” See also idem, “The Martyr,” 191; Kellermann, Auferstanden, 54–60; and S. Schwartz, SCI 15 (1996) 308. Schwartz’s remarks there, in a review of Bower-sock’s Martyrdom and Rome, are directed against BowerBower-sock’s “arbitrary” sugges-tion (ibid. 9–13) that Chs. 6–7 were added to our book only after the appearance of Christianity, a suggestion required by his main thesis that Christian martyrdom de-rives from Roman precedents, not from Jewish ones. Indeed, most of Bowersock’s considerations pertain not to the date of these chapters, but, rather, to differences be-tween them and the rest of the book; as we have seen, such considerations can point to the use of a source and not only to interpolation. His only consideration which, at first glance, might pertain to the dating of our book’s martyrologies is the fact that they do not at all mention the Temple, which suggests they were composed after its destruction in 70 CE. However, just as later authors could refer to the Temple as if it were still standing (see e.g. Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.193–198), so too could earlier auth-ors ignore it. Indeed, we shall suggest that the author of our book itself was not very interested in it; see below, pp. 46–48.
To understand this we shall have to realize that, for our book’s author, it is very important to emphasize that troubles come upon Israel due to sins. This may be seen most clearly in three sections of authorial reflections that precede the martyrologies that begin in 6:18:
– 4:16–17: “For this reason they were overtaken by a difficult state of affairs, and those for whose ways they were enthusiastic, and whom they wanted fully to imitate, became their own enemies and nemeses. For it is no trivial matter to be impious vis à vis the divine laws. But this shall be shown by the next period.”
– 5:17–20: “And Antiochus’ mind went soaring, for he did not see that it was due to the sins of the city’s residents that the Sovereign briefly distanced Himself from it in anger, and that was why the Place was unsupervised. Had it not happened that they had been caught up in many sins, he too – just as Heliodorus, who had been sent by King Seleucus to audit the treasury – im-mediately upon moving forward (into the Temple) would have been flogged and overturned from his insolence. But God did not choose the people on account of the Place; rather, He chose the Place on account of the people. Therefore the Place itself, having shared in the disasters which befell the people, later shared also in the benefactions, and that which had been aban-doned in the anger of the All-Ruler was again reestablished with full honor when the great Sovereign was reconciled.”
– 6:12–16: “Now I call upon the readers of this book not be depressed due to the sufferings, but rather to consider that the punishments were not to destroy our nation, but, rather, to edify it. For not to allow evildoers a free hand for a long time, but, rather, immediately to bring down punish-ments upon them, is a sign of great benefaction. For whereas concerning other peoples the Sovereign long-forbearingly awaits until they reach the plenitude of sins, whereupon He punishes them, He did not deem it appro-priate to handle us that way, so as not to take vengeance upon us later, after our sins are complete. Therefore He never removes His mercy from us, and while edifying us with suffering He does not abandon His own people.”
These statements, which definitely bespeak the position of the book as it is, assume that although usually God watches providentially over the Jews, their city and the Temple, the Jews’ sins can cause Him to look away (5:17), at which point troubles come upon them through the agency of non-Jews, such as Antiochus, who do not realize they are acting as God’s agents. These troubles are meant to “edify” (6:16) the Jews and return them to the straight and narrow, after which God becomes “reconciled” (5:20) with them and restores His providential care. This understanding of history is without any doubt based upon Deuteronomy 32, where we find God hiding
