The Martyrdom of Eleazar the Scribe| creative commons
The books of First and Second Maccabees, which we read every year at this time in the Divine Office, are especially pertinent for us today, when religious syncretism and outright idolatry are allowed to go uncorrected if not openly celebrated.
The Maccabees books are set in the period of about 200 years before Christ. The Jews living in Judea at that time were strongly influenced by the Hellenization that Alexander the Great initiated. Some, especially those of the urban upper class, were keen to dispense with Jewish law and adopt a Greek lifestyle. In their minds this would advance them and the Jewish people in economic and political matters. They hid the marks of circumcision, repudiated the holy covenant and sought to convert Jerusalem into a Greek polis, even renaming it Antioch. An evil high priest, Jason, connived with the Greek King Antiochus to overthrow and eliminate the Jewish faith, replacing it with pagan worship and …More