Maccabaei

(Group Μακκαβαῖοι), the name generally given to the descendants of the family of the heroic Judas Maccabi or Maccabaeus, a surname which he obtained from his glorious victories. (From the Hebrew, , makkab," a hammer;" see Wirner. Biblsches Realwörterbuch, vol. i. p. 745.) They were also called Asamonaci (Ἀσαμωναίοι), from Asamonaeus, or Chasmon, the great-grandfather of Mattathias, the father of Judas Maccabaeus, or, in a shorter form, Asmonaei or Hasmoonaei. This family, which eventually obtained the kingly dignity, first occurs in history in B. C. 167, when Mattathias raised the standard of revolt against the Syrian kings. According to Josephus (J. AJ 14.16) the Asmonaean dynasty lasted for 126 years; and as he places its termination in B. C. 37, the year in which Antigonus, king of Judaea, was put to death by M. Antony, it would have commenced in B. C. 163, when Judas Maccabaeus took Jerusalem, and restored the worship of the temple. At the death of Antigonus there were only two members of the Asmonaean race surviving, namely, Aristobulus and his sister Mariamne, the former of whom was put to death by Herod in B. C. 35, and the latter was married to the murderer of her brother, to whom she bore several children.

The history of the Maccabees is related at length by Josephus (12.6--14.16), and the war of independence against the Syrian kings down to the time of Simon in the first and second books of Maccabees. It is only necessary here to give a brief account of the founders of this family, since the various members of it, who obtained the kingly dignity, are given under their proper names. A genealogical table of the whole family will be found in Vol. II. p. 543.

From the death of Alexander the Great the Greek language, religion, and civilisation, which had been spread more or less throughout the whole of Asia, from the Indus to the Aegaean, had been making a certain though slow progress among the Jewish nation also. Under the sovereignty of the early Ptolemies and Seleucidae, who had allowed the Jews liberty of religious worship, an influential party had adopted the Greek religion and Greek habits; and their example would probably have been followed by still greater numbers, had not the attempts of Antiochus (IV.) Epiphanes to root out entirely by persecution the worship of Jehovah roused the religious patriotism of the great body of the people, who still remained stedfast to their ancient faith.

Antiochus IV. had sold the priesthood successively to Joshua, who assumed the Greek name of Jason, and subsequently to Onias, who also changed his name into that of Menelaus, under the condition of their introducing into Jerusalem Greek rites and institutions. Onias, in order to obtain the money to pay for the priesthood, had purloined the sacred vessels of the temple, and sold them at Tyre. This act of sacrilege, united with other circumstances, caused a formidable insurrection at Jerusalem, for which, however, the inhabitants had to pay dearly. Antiochus was just returning from his Egyptian campaign when he heard of the revolt. He forthwith marched against the city, which he easily took (B. C. 170), put to death a vast number of the inhabitants, pillaged the temple, and profaned it by offering a sow on the altar of burnt sacrifices. Two years afterwards, when he was forced by the Romans to retire from Egypt, he resolved to root out entirely the Jewish religion, and to put to death every one who still adhered to it. He again took possession of Jerusalem, and commanded a general massacre of the inhabitants on the Sabbath; he set fire to the city in many places, and built a strong fortress in the highest part of Mount Sion, to command the whole of the surrounding country. He then published an edict, which enjoined uniformity of worship throughout his dominions; and the most frightful cruelties were perpetrated on those who refused obedience.

The barbarities committed in every part of Judaea soon produced a reaction. At Modin, a town not far from Lydda, on the road which leads from Joppa to Jerusalem, lived Mattathias, a man of the priestly line and of deep religious feeling, who had five sons in the vigour of their days, John, Simon, Judas, Eleazar, and Jonathan. When the officer of the Syrian king visited Modin, to enforce obedience to the royal edict, Mattathias not only refused to desert the religion of his forefathers, but with his own hand struck dead the first renegade who attempted to offer sacrifice on the heathen altar. He then put to death the king's officer, and retired to the mountains with his five sons (B. C. 167). Their numbers daily increased; and as opportunities occurred, they issued from their mountain fastnesses, cut off detachments of the Syrian army, destroyed heathen altars, and restored in many places the synagogues and the open worship of the Jewish religion. Within a few months the insurrection at Modin had grown into a war for national independence. But the toils of such a war were too much for the aged frame of Mattathias, who died in the first year of the revolt, leaving the conduct of it to Judas, his third son.

See Iudaei, p. 894.