The mother of the Maccabees

Woman of faith and courage
"Do not fear this executioner (...) accept death so that I can have you back together with his brothers on the day of the day of mercy" (Mac 7:29). With these words a heroic mother, with superhuman courage, pushes the last of her seven children not to hesitate to face martyrdom and death because it will not be an abyss of nothing, but an open door to enter a new life in the embrace of divine mercy. We are at the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanes who reigned over Syria and Palestine (176-164 BC) imposing his own law on the Jewish people, preventing any relationship with their God and contesting their tradition.

The book of Maccabees of Greek tradition (in fact it is not accepted in the Hebrew canon) tells that among others "seven brothers were taken together with their mother and forced by the king, by means of scourges and nerbates, to eat prohibited pork" which they refused. Subjected to atrocious torments, they exhorted each other to be faithful to the laws of their fathers. The king ordered more and more atrocious tortures, while the heroic mother recommended "not to give in to the king's command (...)" and die like heroes. She exhorted them not to be afraid of death and did not cry for them as if they were about to die, on the contrary, strong of a deep faith, she implored them to face death, while she shouted to the tyrant that death was not the last word. , "The king of the universe would have raised them to new and eternal life": this affirmation is important because it reveals faith in the resurrection.

The words of the mother gave so much courage to the fourth son that, while he was dying amid ever more atrocious torments, he declared to the king: there will really be a resurrection for life ”. Asked by the king to persuade at least the last child to obey his command in order to save his life, the mother, pretending to obey him, "bent over him, mocking the cruel tyrant", spoke to him with tenderness and force, whispering to him in Aramaic, the language of the fathers: "son, have mercy on me who carried you within nine months ... contemplate the sky and the earth, know that God made them not from pre-existing things, this is also the origin of the human race". Important certification because it introduces the idea of ​​"ex nihilo" creation. At these words, the same young man impatiently asked for death, increasing the anger of the king who felt mocked and vented his anger with even more violent torments.

The mother died last, opposing her love for her to so much violence, enlightened and strengthened by the light of faith. In doing so, she generated her children a second time, and this time, to immortal life. The memory of this mother's faith and courage remained etched in the minds and hearts of subsequent generations, so much so that we find the story deepened in the fourth book of the Maccabees, composed in the first century AD. C. in Syria, where the cult of these Maccabean martyrs was alive both among the Jews and among the Christians. The book remembers her as «Mother of the Nation, defender of the Law, defense of piety. Holy and God-fearing Mother ». (Mac 7,1-41)

Anna Maria Del Prete
NP April 2021