Hasmonean Martyrdom: Between Christian and Jewish Tradition

Shmuni and Her Seven Sons: A Syriac Tradition

Early Christian authors from the eastern church were enamored of the Hasmonean martyrs.^[1] The daily liturgy of the Antiochene Syriac Orthodox Church even incorporated references to them.^[2] In one prayer, the mother of the martyred sons, identified here as Shmuni— a name related to the family name Hashmonai—defiantly speaks to the cruel king, boasting of the pride she takes in her sons’ deaths:

מן שבעה בני נציחה
אמרה לה שמוני למלכה
חד מנהון לא יהבני לך
נשמש קודמיך עבדותא
לאלהא יובא אנא להון
דדילה איתיהון עבדא
בצפרא שמוני מהימנתא
פיסא קרבתי לאלהא
אלהא עבד לי דינא
מן מלכא אנטיכוס
לבני נכס איך אמרא
ועלי גזם איך אריא^[3]

Of the seven of my triumphant sons
Says Shmuni to the king –
I will give away none
To serve under you.
I give them to God.
They are his servants.
In the morning the faithful Shmuni
Presented the following request to God:
God, save me
From the king Antiochus.
He slaughters my sons as lambs
And pounces on me like a lion.[4]

The Syriac Christian Aphrahat (Adiabene c.270–c.345), a leading scholar of the Antiochian church who lived in the Sassanian Persian empire, praised Shmuni and her seven sons. The same is true for his younger contemporary, the exegete Ephrem the Syrian (b. 306, Nisibis–d. 373, Edessa), another leading sage from this community, who wrote a hymn called “On the Sons of Shmuni.”^[5]

A Christian Festival Honoring the Hasmonean Martyrs

By the fourth century, the Cult of Saint Shmuni was active in Antioch, and the annual August 1 feast was added to the calendars of numerous churches in Western and Eastern Orthodox traditions. The Archbishop of Constantinople, Gregory of Nazianzus (329–ca. 390), in a homily titled “In Praise of the Maccabees,” explains that Christians celebrate “The Feast of the Hasmoneans” to honor the Judean martyrs—especially the woman and her seven sons (see below) but others as well—because they willingly martyred themselves as an emulation of Jesus’ future crucifixion:

The festival today is indeed in their [the Maccabees’] honor, though not many recognize them because their martyrdom antedates Christ. Yet they deserve universal recognition for their unswerving devotion to the ways of their fathers. Consider what they, whose martyrdom preceded Christ’s passion, would have achieved if they had been persecuted after the time of Christ and were able to emulate his death on our behalf…^[6]

Gregory believed that the Hasmoneans’ willingness to go to their deaths led to acts of perfect sacrifice that could not possibly have taken place without their prophetic knowledge of Christ. Like other biblical figures who willingly sacrificed their lives prior to the death of Christ, the Hasmoneans must have had some knowledge of Christ’s coming, and were willing to die as an emulation of that act.[7]

Similarly, John Chrysostom (347–407 C.E.), the Bishop of Antioch, famous for his eloquent speeches—his name (Χρυσόστομος) means “Golden Mouth”—delivered a series of homilies that extol the Hasmoneans as righteous men:

For I don’t hesitate to count [the mother and her seven sons] with the other martyrs, to the extent that I declare that they are even more brilliant. For they competed at a time when the bronze gates had not yet been shattered, nor the iron bar removed, when sin still ruled and the curse flourished and the Devil’s citadel stood and the path of this kind of virtue was as yet untrodden.^[8]

According to Chrysostom, these figures should be treated with the same reverence as martyred saints who lived after Jesus’ death. As sin was even more dominant in the time before Jesus, if anything, martyrs from this period are even more impressive.

The Christians who admired Shmuni and her seven sons as well as other martyrs from the Hasmonean period extoled their heroism because they interpreted their willingness to die as an expression of their faith in Christ. This approach is a uniquely Christian reframing of a Jewish martyrdom story that goes back to the 2^nd century B.C.E.

Martyrdom Rather than Eating Pork

2 Maccabees^[9] tells two tales of heroic martyrdom at length, both about refusal to eat pork. The first is about the death of a respected elder named Eliezer:

^{2 Macc 6:18} Eleazar, one of the scribes in high position, a man now advanced in age and of noble presence, was being forced to open his mouth to eat pig’s flesh. ^6:19 But he, welcoming death with honor rather than life with pollution, went up to the rack of his own accord, ^6:20 spitting it out, as all ought to go who have the courage to refuse things that it is not right to taste, even for the natural love of life.

The second story is about the martyrdom of a Jewish mother and her seven sons—the basis for the Shmuni story quoted above:

^{2 Macc 7:1} It happened also that seven brothers and their mother were arrested and were being compelled by the king, under torture with whips and straps, to partake of unlawful pig’s flesh. ^7:2 One of them, acting as their spokesman, said, “What do you intend to ask and learn from us? For we are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our ancestors.”

The king, clearly Antiochus IV in context, is furious and has the boy executed in a gruesome and painful manner, which the author describes in detail:

^{2 Macc 7:3} The king fell into a rage and gave orders to have pans and caldrons heated. ^7:4 These were heated immediately, and he commanded that the tongue of their spokesman be cut out and that they scalp him and cut off his hands and feet, while the rest of the brothers and the mother looked on. ^7:5 When he was utterly helpless, the king ordered them to take him to the fire, still breathing, and to fry him in a pan.

Each of the woman’s sons is tortured similarly when he refuses to eat pork at the command of King Antiochus. Once the older six boys are killed, the youngest son is brought before the king and declares that his brothers’ deaths, and his own imminent death, derives not from a position of weakness, but from a position of power,^[10] expressing the author’s conviction that God is the sole source of the Jews’ suffering, and the source of their coming victory. The Jews’ willingness to die, moreover, will arouse God’s sympathy and will soon prompt God to intervene on the Jews’ behalf.^[11]

Dying for a cause was a Greek ideal,^[12] and it is thus not surprising that the Hellenistic 2 Maccabees is sympathetic to this concept. Indeed, the stories of Eliezer and the Woman with Seven Sons were expanded upon in a 1^st century C.E. Hellenistic-Jewish philosophical work, written in Greek, referred to as 4 Maccabees.^[13]

Not Pork but Idol Worship

The Talmud too retells the story of the woman and her seven sons, anchoring it in a verse from Psalms:^[14]

^{תהלים מד:כג} כִּי עָלֶיךָ הֹרַגְנוּ כׇל הַיּוֹם נֶחְשַׁבְנוּ כְּצֹאן טִבְחָה.

^{Ps 44:23} As for Your sake we are killed all the day long; we are reckoned as sheep for the slaughter.

^{בבלי גיטין נז:} וְרַב יְהוּדָה אָמַר: זוֹ אִשָּׁה וְשִׁבְעָה בָּנֶיהָ – אַתְיוּהּ לְקַמָּא לְקַמֵּיהּ דְּקֵיסָר, אֲמַרוּ לֵיהּ: פְּלַח לַעֲבוֹדָה זָרָה!

Rav Judah said: “This [verse] is about the woman and her seven sons.” They brought the first [son] before Caesar. They said to him: “Worship an idol!”

The Talmud recasts the story to be in the time of the Romans, with an unnamed Caesar playing the role of the Greek King, and, concomitantly, no mention of Chanukah or Hasmoneans. The violation in the rabbinic version is not eating pork but worshiping an idol, one of three prohibitions a Jew must choose death to avoid (along with murder and incest) according to rabbinic law.^[15] Finally, the Talmud forgoes the gruesome descriptions of boiling flesh and torture in favor of the simple refrain אַפְּקוּהּ וְקַטְלוּהּ “they took him out and killed him.”

Sex Slavery

Another interpretation of the verse from Psalms—also noted by this same Rav Judah^[16]—tells of Jewish children taken captive by the Roman Empire during the Judean rebellion, who choose death as an alternative to being sold into sexual slavery:

^{בבלי גיטין נז:} מַעֲשֶׂה בְּאַרְבַּע מֵאוֹת יְלָדִים וִילָדוֹת שֶׁנִּשְׁבּוּ לְקָלוֹן הִרְגִּישׁוּ בְּעַצְמָן לְמָה הֵן מִתְבַּקְּשִׁים אָמְרוּ אִם אָנוּ טוֹבְעִין בַּיָּם אָנוּ בָּאִין לְחַיֵּי הָעוֹלָם הַבָּא

There was an incident involving four hundred boys and girls who were taken as captives for the purpose of sex slavery. These children sensed on their own what they were expected to do, and they said: If we commit suicide and drown in the sea, will we come to eternal life in the World-to-Come?

דָּרַשׁ לָהֶן הַגָּדוֹל שֶׁבָּהֶן (תהלים סח:כג) "אָמַר אֲדֹנָי מִבָּשָׁן אָשִׁיב אָשִׁיב מִמְּצוּלוֹת יָם." "מִבָּשָׁן אָשִׁיב"—מִבֵּין שִׁינֵּי אַרְיֵה. "אָשִׁיב מִמְּצוּלוֹת יָם"—אֵלּוּ שֶׁטּוֹבְעִין בַּיָּם.

The oldest child among them expounded the verse: “The Lord said, I will bring back from Bashan, I will bring them back from the depths of the sea” (Psalms 68:23). “I will bring back from Bashan,” i.e., from between the teeth [bein shen] of the lion, and “I will bring them back from the depths of the sea” is referring to those who drown in the sea.

כֵּיוָן שֶׁשָּׁמְעוּ יְלָדוֹת כָּךְ קָפְצוּ כּוּלָּן וְנָפְלוּ לְתוֹךְ הַיָּם

When the girls heard this, they all leapt and fell into the sea.

נָשְׂאוּ יְלָדִים קַל וָחוֹמֶר בְּעַצְמָן וְאָמְרוּ מָה הַלָּלוּ שֶׁדַּרְכָּן לְכָךְ כָּךְ אָנוּ שֶׁאֵין דַּרְכֵּנוּ לְכָךְ עַל אַחַת כַּמָּה וְכַמָּה אַף הֵם קָפְצוּ לְתוֹךְ הַיָּם

The boys then drew an a fortiori inference with regard to themselves and said: If these girls, for whom sexual intercourse with men is their natural way, act in such a manner, then we, for whom sexual intercourse with men is not our natural way, should all the more so conduct ourselves likewise. They too leapt into the sea.

The sin the boys were worried about is an example of the rabbinic category of גילוי עריות, sexual sin, and thus requires martyrdom. The girls, in contrast, are being extra pious, though under the circumstances, the Talmud accepts this as righteous behavior. In other words, these stories show that the rabbis also venerate martyrdom, but only in certain extreme scenarios—idolatry and sex slavery—and tone down the melodramatic graphic depictions in comparison with Hellenistic Jewish sources like 2 and 4 Maccabees.

Martyrdom Is Sacrifice for Torah Observance

Following these two stories, the Talmud drops the martyrdom association entirely and reinterprets the verse as an allegory for the observance of Jewish law.

Circumcision

One interpretation of Psalms connects being killed all the day long with Jews circumcising their newborn sons:

^{בבלי גיטין נז:} רַבִּי יְהוֹשֻׁעַ בֶּן לֵוִי אָמַר: "זוֹ מִילָה שֶׁנִּיתְּנָה בַּשְּׁמִינִי."

^{b. Gittin 57b} Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi says: “this [verse] is referring tocircumcision, which was given for the eighth day, as the blood of our newborn sons is spilled for the sake of the covenant with God.”

Ritual Slaughter

Another interpretation mentions a bizarre situation of experts teaching others proper ritual slaughter by demonstrating the proper use of the knife on themselves:

רַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן בֶּן לָקִישׁ אָמַר: "אֵלּוּ תַּלְמִידֵי חֲכָמִים שֶׁמַּרְאִין הִלְכוֹת שְׁחִיטָה בְּעַצְמָן."

Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish says: “This [verse] was stated in reference to Torah scholars who demonstrate the halakhot of slaughter on themselves.”^[17]

Torah Study

The final interpretation turns from the observance of commandments to the scholar’s act of Torah study, which is described in hyperbolic terms, as if exhausting themselves with constant Torah study were a form of martyrdom:

רַב נַחְמָן בַּר יִצְחָק אָמַר אֵלּוּ תַּלְמִידֵי חֲכָמִים שֶׁמְּמִיתִין עַצְמָן עַל דִּבְרֵי תוֹרָה

Rav Nahman bar Isaac says: “This [verse] was stated in reference to Torah scholars who kill themselves over the words of Torah.”

כִּדְרַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן בֶּן לָקִישׁ דְּאָמַר רַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן בֶּן לָקִישׁ: "אֵין דִּבְרֵי תוֹרָה מִתְקַיְּימִין אֶלָּא בְּמִי שֶׁמֵּמִית עַצְמוֹ עֲלֵיהֶם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (במדבר יט:יד): 'זֹאת הַתּוֹרָה אָדָם כִּי יָמוּת בְּאֹהֶל וְגוֹ׳.'"

This is in accordance with the statement of Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish. As Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish says: “The words of the Torah endure^[18] only for one who kills himself over them, as it is stated (Num 19:14): ‘This is the Torah, when a man dies in a tent.’”

This entire set of interpretations, which offer an alternative to the martyrdom stories—circumcision, teaching ritual slaughter in a dangerous way, and exhaustion by constant study—downplays the virtue of literal martyrdom. Nevertheless, the rabbis don’t dismiss its value altogether.

Indeed, the Talmud includes stories set ostensibly in the wake of the Bar Kokhba revolt and the consequent Hadrianic persecutions, in which several rabbis, such as Rabbi Akiva and R. Haninah ben Teradyon, are killed on account of their public teaching of Torah (b. Avodah Zarah 18a).^[19]

Rabbinic skepticism about martyrdom may have been buttressed by their awareness of the Christian traditions, which presented the Hasmoneans as Christian heroes who had prophetic knowledge of Jesus as Lord and Savior of humanity.[20] Nevertheless, skepticism about the religious value of martyrdom has deeper roots, going back to Hasmonean times.

Fighting on Shabbat Is Better than Passive Martyrdom

The book of 1 Maccabees, originally written in Hebrew by a Judean member of John Hyrcanus’ court, speaks of how certain Jews, who had fled from cities and towns to escape persecution, were surrounded by Greek Seleucid troops, who ordered them to surrender or do battle. The ultimatum fell out on Shabbat:

^{1 Macc 2:32} …They (=Seleucid army) encamped opposite them (=Judeans) and prepared for battle against them on the sabbath day. ^2:33 They said to them, ‘Enough of this! Come out and do what the king commands, and you will live.’ ^2:34 But they said, ‘We will not come out, nor will we do what the king commands and so profane the sabbath day.’

The Judeans here refuse to fight on Shabbat, so they are easily slaughtered by the Greek troops:

^{1 Macc 2:35} Then the enemy quickly attacked them. ^2:36 But they did not answer them or hurl a stone at them or block up their hiding-places, ^2:37 for they said, ‘Let us all die in our innocence; heaven and earth testify for us that you are killing us unjustly.’ ^2:38 So they attacked them on the sabbath, and they died, with their wives and children and livestock, to the number of a thousand people.^[21]

While presenting these people as pious, Mattathias and his sons and followers understand the behavior as a religious error, however well meaning:

^{1 Macc 2:39} When Mattathias and his friends learned of it, they mourned for them deeply. ^2:40 And all said to their neighbors: ‘If we all do as our kindred have done and refuse to fight with the Gentiles for our lives and for our ordinances, they will quickly destroy us from the earth.’ ^2:41 So they made this decision that day: ‘Let us fight against anyone who comes to attack us on the sabbath day; let us not all die as our kindred died in their hiding-places.’

In the author’s view, Judea is saved not only by the piety of those who gave their lives without a struggle, but also by the Hasmoneans who took up arms and fought. The rest of 1 Maccabees details the successive military exploits of Mattathias’ sons, ending in the establishment of Simon, and then his son John Hyrcanus, as high priests of an independent Judea. Judah Maccabee and his brothers were heroic because they took matters into their own hands and refused to wait passively for God’s intervention.

Megillat Antiochus: An Outlier in Rabbinic Texts

Early rabbinic literature says very little about Chanukah.^[22] Exceptional in this regard is Megillat Antiochus—written in Aramaic by a Jew living in Syria or perhaps Israel, in the mid- to late first millennium C.E.^[23]—which narrates the Hasmonean rebellion and makes use of martyrdom stories. It speaks of a pious woman who gives up her life, baby in hand, rather than allowing her son to go uncircumcised:

^{מגילת אנטיוכוס לה} ואף אנתתא די ילידת בר בתר דמית בעלה וגזרתיה לתמניא יומין. וסליקת על שורא די ירושלם וברה גזירה בידה: ^לו ענת ואמרת לך אמרין בגריס חיבא אנתון מסברין לבטלא מיננא קימא די גזיר עמנא קימא דאבהתנא לא פסיק מיננא ושבתא ירחא ומהילותא מבני בניהון לא יעידון. ואפלת ברה לארעא ונפלת בתריה ומיתו תרויהון כחדא וסגיאין מן בני ישראל די הוו עבדין כן ביומיא האינון ולא משניין קיים אבהתהון:^[24]

^{Megillat Antiochus 35­} There was also a woman who bore a son after the death of her husband, and she circumcised him when he was eight days old. And she went up on the wall of Jerusalem, bearing her circumcised son. ³⁶ And she cried out and said, “To you Bagris, the wicked, be it said ‘You plan to destroy the covenant that has been made with us, the covenant of our forefathers. Sabbath and the new-moon [festivals] and circumcision we will not abandon, neither we nor our children’s children.’” And she cast her son to the ground, and leaped down after him, and both died together. Many of the children of Israel did thus in those days rather than violate the covenant of their fathers.^[25]

The mother’s defiant speech to Bagris, whose name may be a corruption of Antiochus Epiphanes’ commander Bacchides, clarifies that death is preferable to the violation of the Jews’ ancestral laws.^[26] Megillat Antiochus then recounts a story which seems to draw from 1 Maccabees about Jews who refuse to violate the Sabbath by picking up arms. In contrast to 1 Maccabees, however, their refusal is a praiseworthy act of piety:

^{מגילת אנטיוכוס לז} ביה זמנא אמרין בני ישראל אלין לאלין איתו ונהך ונשבות במערתא. ולמה נחלל יומא דשבתא. ואכלי קורציהון קדם בגריס: ^לח באדין בגריס חייבא שלח גוברין די זיינא ויתיבו על פום מערתא ואמרין להון יהודאי פוקו לוותנא אכלו מן לחמנא ושתו מן חמרנא ועובדנא תהוון עבדין: ^לט ענין בני ישראל ואמרין אלין לאלין דכירין אנחנא מה דאתפקדנא על טורא דסיני שיתא יומין תעבדון עבדתיכון וביומא שביעאה תניחון. כען טב לנא דנמות במערתא מן דנחלל יומא דשבתא:^[27]

^{Megillat Antiochus 37} Therefore the Israelites said one to the other, “Come let us withdraw into a cave, lest here we be compelled to desecrate the Sabbath.” But their plan was betrayed to Bagris. Then did Bagris, the wicked, send armed men, to camp at the entrance to the cave. And they said, “Jews, come forth to us, eat with us of our bread, and drink with us of our wine, and do even as we do.” And the children of Israel spoke and said one to another, “We all remember what we were commanded upon Mount Sinai; ‘Six days shall you labor, and upon the seventh day, shall you rest.’ It were better to die in this cave than to profane the Sabbath day.”

Megillat Antiochus is an exceptional text in its praise of Hasmonean martyrs.^[28] Other documents that were produced in rabbinic settings limit the retelling of the Hasmonean revolt to a brief description of the war. They explain Chanukah primarily by referencing the miracle of the oil (b. Shabbat 21b) or the story of rebuilding the menorah out of eight spears (Pesikta Rabbati §2).^[29] Such traditions do not reveal a dependence upon stories preserved in 1 and 2 Maccabees concerning the voluntary deaths of Jews during the Hasmonean revolt. Megillat Antiochus, however, repurposes such traditions and portrays these Jews as worthy of admiration.^[30]

“Dying” of Torah not Dying for Torah

The rabbis’ skepticism concerning martyrdom, and their impulse to limit the circumstances in which martyrdom is considered a desirable choice, may explain why Megillat Antiochus, or at least the traditions upon which it was based, remained obscure until the eighth century or so.^[31] For the rabbis, dying for God was theoretically an admirable thing, but in practice, they wished to limit this to the occasional exceptional story, and not encourage their followers to pursue a martyr’s fate. Far better, in their view, was the choice to study Torah and “die” of exhaustion, an image of piety the rabbis could easily get behind.