Introduction Remembering the Maccabean Martyrs

Abstract

This book is about Christian memories of the Maccabean martyrs from the early to late medieval Christian periods, ranging geographically from the eastern Mediterranean to northwestern Europe.1 That Christians commemorated the Maccabean martyrs at all is noteworthy. The Maccabean martyrs were a group of seven Jewish brothers whose story was first recounted in 2 Maccabees 7. In this narrative an anonymous group of seven sons, in accordance with the exhortations of their mother, suffers martyrdom at the hands of the Seleucid king Antiochus IV for refusing to eat pork, a violation of the Jewish dietary laws as set forth in Torah. Both Christian and Jewish traditions about the Maccabean martyrs developed in the first two centuries of the Common Era, during the period of the separation of these communities.2 Among Christians, these traditions spread throughout the Mediterranean world. We have evidence, notably in the form of treatises on martyrdom, festal sermons, and liturgical calendars, for local commemorations of these martyrs in Syriac-, Greek-, and Latin-speaking regions, showing that Christians, from a relatively early period, considered them worthy of veneration.3 Into the Western medieval period, both Jewish and Christian communities continued to honor them as holy figures, with no evidence that each community was aware of the parallel patterns of devotion.4