August: Day 1: Teaching 4: The Holy Maccabean Martyrs

August: Day 1: Teaching 4:
The Holy Maccabean Martyrs
 
(On Standing Firm For One’s Holy, National Faith)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. Today, brethren, the Holy Church solemnly celebrates the feast day in memory of the Seven Maccabean Martyrs, their mother Solomone, and their teacher Eleazar. They lived nearly two hundred years before the birth of Christ, yet despite this, the Christian Orthodox Church continues to joyfully celebrate their memory to this day. What have they done to deserve this? What actions and feats have they accomplished to earn themselves eternal remembrance in prayer? To understand this, let us turn to the history of the time in which they lived.

Esteemed Church, the Holy Maccabean Martyrs lived during the reign of the Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes. This king, having plundered Jerusalem and slaughtered many thousands of Jews, initiated a wicked persecution of their faith, seeking to eradicate it entirely in order to subject them more securely and swiftly to his rule. To this end, he commanded the Jews, under threat of death, to "cease burnt offerings and sacrifices and libations in the sanctuary, abolish Sabbaths and feasts, establish pagan altars and groves and shrines, and to sacrifice swine and other animals that are abominable to the pagans, to leave their sons uncircumcised, and generally to change all previous religious beliefs, institutions, laws, morals, and ancestral customs" (1 Maccabees 6). It was a difficult time for the Jews. To change the faith and customs of their ancestors meant to change their nationality; it meant to lose everything – both faith and nationality. However, being faithful to the law of God and the covenants of their forefathers, the Jews disregarded the threats of the wicked king. For them, death was preferable to betraying their faith. Holding on to their beliefs, they feared neither severe tortures nor death, to which the tormentors subjected the Jews.

During this time of great persecution for the Jews, in order to console the Old Testament Church of God, many steadfast confessors of their faith emerged who, unwilling to renounce the ancestral laws, "chose rather to die than to be defiled" and bravely suffered a martyr's death. Among them, the Holy Church honors the ninety-year-old elder Eleazar, the seven Maccabee brothers, and their mother Solomone. Eleazar was urged alone by the persecutors to pretend to renounce the law – "to act as if he were eating the king's commanded sacrificial meat, that by doing so, he might escape death." But the elder, adorned with gray hairs and piety, replied: "It is unworthy of my age to feign in order to preserve the brief span of my days. The young, looking at me, might also be led astray... If I were to escape these present torments, neither the living nor the dead would evade the hand of the Almighty." Having said this, he went willingly and joyfully to endure suffering. Exhausted by his torment, Eleazar groaned and said: "To You, O Lord, who have perfect knowledge, it is known that I, being able to free myself from death, endure severe agonies in my body, while in my soul I feel joy from the fact that I suffer this in reverence to You."

The example of Elder Eleazar, who courageously suffered for the holy faith and the laws of the fathers, did not remain without imitation. It happened that the Maccabean brothers with their mother Solomone were seized and, in the presence of the king himself, were forced with whips and ox thongs to eat food forbidden by law; but they did not agree... "We are ready to die rather than violate the laws of our country," said the first or eldest youth. It was ordered to cut off his tongue, to flay his skin, to cut off the limbs of his body, to put him on a red-hot frying pan and to burn him. The brothers and mother looked at these inhuman tortures; smelled the vapors of the burning, mutually encouraging each other for the coming sufferings. Like the first, they tortured the second – they flayed the skin from his head, and he, dying, confessed that the King of peace is the Lord, who will raise up those who have kept His laws and died for their sake to eternal life. The third one appeared with even greater magnanimity in the face of suffering, to the point that the king and those with him were astonished by the courage of the young man. Offering his tongue and hands for amputation, he said, "All this I have received from God, and I hope to receive again from Him." The fifth, during his torment, rebuked his tormentor, saying, "Do not think that our race is abandoned by God. Wait, and you will see His great sovereign power: how He will punish you and your offspring." The sixth, while dying, told the tormentor, "Do not be deceived; we suffer for our sins before God. And do not think that you are innocent, you who have started a fight against God." The youngest, the last, was approached by Antiochus, who swore that he would make him rich and happy if he renounced the ancestral law. The young man paid no heed to this. Then the king advised the mother to persuade her youngest and last son to save his life. The magnanimous mother pleaded with her son not to spare her, who had carried him in her womb, nourished him with milk, nurtured him, and endured the hardships of raising him. "I beseech you, my child, to look to heaven and earth and understand that God created everything out of nothing; do not be afraid of this flesh-tearing monster, but, as befits your brethren, accept death." The son, rebuking the tormentor, confessing his sins and the future resurrection, replied: "Like my brethren, I surrender my soul and body for the laws of my fathers, calling upon God to soon be merciful to Israel. The anger of the Almighty will cease upon me and my brethren; but you, with torment, will confess that He is indeed God." The confessor was condemned to death with intense cruelty.

A wonderful and memorable mother, who inspired and encouraged her sons to endure suffering and death, bravely gazed upon their martyric demise. After their death, she was burned.

II. Remarkable, indeed, this feat of patience and selflessness, aimed at preserving the ancestral law, at adhering to the divinely mandated fast of his time and people – refusing the forbidden pork as dictated by the law – this accomplishment manifested by the elder Eleazar, the Maccabean brothers, and their mother, Solomone. They openly confessed their faith without any hint of hypocrisy or duplicity, and no brutal tortures and sufferings could compel them to betray their ancestral laws and decrees.

Is it not the duty of each of us to stand for the holy faith, to steadfastly uphold the laws of our ancestors and the decrees of the Church? Yet, to our considerable astonishment and deep regret, it is evident that among the Orthodox youth of the Holy Russian land, there are those who, without any compulsion from outside parties — completely of their own will — betray the covenants of our forebears and the decrees of our Orthodox Church. They willingly heed various false teachers — these serpents of temptation — and renounce their native Orthodox faith, without contemplating that betrayal of ancestral laws and customs, for denial of the patristic faith is indeed a repudiation of their national identity, of national independence, of the essence of their peoplehood, of the patristic faith, of obedience to their Mother Church, and, most importantly, of their eternal salvation.

III. Brethren in Christ, may the example of the Holy Martyrs – the elder Eleazar and the Maccabees, who suffered for the integrity and inviolability of their faith and ancestral traditions, revive in us love and devotion to the holy Orthodox faith. Amen.  

 

Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.